Cat has poorly eye - sad news

hev_2

[quote=tanith;9895861
She just came walking nonchalantly into the kitchen one Saturday morning leaving little delicate BLUE paw prints across the floor .. looking at me as much as to say... oooh look someone made a mess!!!! Who me? No not me!!! [/quote]

I know that look! And the one that says, 'well get it cleared up then!'

Shadow has a trick of when you open the door of looking at you as if to say, you kept me waiting, don't do it again. Smoke just hurtles through - sometimes she misjudges the distance and whacks into the door but it doesn't slow her down.

Oh, yes - bathing cats. When all three of ours got between the floor boards and came out covered in the most awful dust (old house, looked like dust from fires etc) we decided we had to bath them. I had never done that before, so we checked in the cat book. It say, put the cat in a watertight plastic box and gently run in warm water. The cat will be curious and probably start to purr. Yeah, right! I'm surprised the neighbours didn't call the RSPCA and Smudge nearly got to the top when he ran straight up a window with a 76 inch drop! At the end I was absolutely drenched to the bone, bleeding and exhausted. The cats all hated me as well.

But don't they look funny when they've been bathed :D:D:D Especially as they are drying out and they reach the punk stage. :D:D:D:D Not quite worth it, but nearly.

deedeeliz

I dont want to raise your hopes but when my baby was 17 she developed lots of fatty cysts on her underbelly. The vet was wary of operating but we werent sure if they were tumours and so he did it, coming home a few hours after the op she jumped onto the kitchen counter trying to get food Her underside looked awful, but her biggest gripe was she'd been without food for x amount of hours - lol.

She lived till last october when she was 19, i miss her so much but am glad i had her love.

badmumof1

hey Hev i got a cat called smudge but shes a girl and i think she hold the record of using her lives up and borrowing from others

shes 19 and only has one eye due to a stab wound when she was 15
we honestly though we were going to loose her but the vet saved the eye but she has a blob of skin over the eye and cant see through it. It looks better than the eye stiched up totally.
previous to this she has been run over 3 times and mauled by a fox.
her jaw was broken and she had to have that rebuilt
shes had the usual abcesses n alments.
then last year she went missing ( she was taken and dumped ) and the CP bought her back and she had cracked ribs and her front paws had been tied together as you could see the blood and cuts on the paws

with regard to the eye she wore a buster cone for about 6 months whilst the eye was being operated on and a long slow healing process due to the nature of the injury.

we used to bath her but we wasnt sure what she went through when she was taken and she has since then been very very grumpy. I give her bachs remedy when i need to groom her as her fur is too much for her to cope with and gets knotted up.

we took in a kitten overnight as it was going to the vets the next day and i had to take the kitten from the basket and put it into a cage
simple eh !!!!!!
yeah
well no

this kitten done the wall of death round my dining room and then made it into my kitchen and everything that was on the worktop ended up on the floor !!!!
hubby eventually got this kitten in the cage and i threw a table cloth over it and she soon calmed down.
when we took it to the vets next day it took abotu a hour to settle in there too.

hev_2

Thank you, deedeeliz, Shadow also has strong views about food, it's quality and how often it should be put down!

badmumof1 - that is one hell of a cat! Our cats don't go out, but our Smudge escaped a fortnight before we moved house :eek: He turned up three days before we moved, and he had been less than a hundred yards away all the time :rolleyes: We just managed to stop him widdling on a policeman and he has menaced a vicar. Not bad for a house cat! There must be something about the name. As I said, he didn't go out, so while we were watching Disney's Cinderella, with all the dancing mice, he walked in with a mouse in his mouth, looked at us as if to say - this one didn't have a cute hat and bit its head off. In front of my Dad's girlfriend. Who had hysterics. He must have got the mouse mail order, for what sort of mouse comes into a house full of cats. (apart from the one that came into our living room, ran round twice in front of three cats and got away :rolleyes:)

I miss Smudge sooo much.

Really appreciate the posts, thank you.

hev_2

badmumof1 - BTW Thanks for mentioning Bachs remedy. I will get some of that - what type is it and can you use the human stuff or should I get it from our vet?

badmumof1

my dear old girl is laying outside in the glorious sunshine
oh what a hard life she lives
the other one we adopted last year has taken a shine to laying under nextdoors bushes and will only come home when its dinnertime

Bachs remedy well i got mine off ebay

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Bach-Flower-Remedy-Remedies-RESCUE-ANIMALS-Dog-Cat-Pet_W0QQitemZ250223980742QQihZ015QQcategoryZ101965QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

this particular seller does other ones for different things too.

i asked one of our ladies at CP and the vets and they said it was ok to use for a short term remedy

hev_2

Update - Shadow has come back from the vets.

Still no decision on whether an abscess or growth is causing problems with the eye, but they say that it is not worth doing intrusive surgery to find out because at her age the treatment would be the same - antibiotics. If it is a growth, antibiotics to fight secondary infections, if it is an abscess (after nearly six weeks of antibiotics ) then the treatment would still be antibiotics.

So, giving a pill to a cat...

Cheap meat paste, fromage frais, yoghurt, cream cheese - its amazing where you can hide a pill and these are the sort where you can open a capsule and put granules in the stuff.

As another note, the vets have their own cat, who is on a strict diet. Everyone has been warned not to feed him, but suddenly he was putting on huge amounts of weight. It turns out he has found a way into the store room and then got to where they store the dried food and was tearing open packets and stuffing himself on kitten food :D:D:D

He is in the feline equivalent of the doghouse.

I love cats.

tanith

Thanks for the update Hev... I guess Shadow will now rely on your judgement and care and concern ... hopefully she will have time to enjoy the coming warmer weather and share some more 'moments' with you.... enjoy her and store up those memories.... my Lindy took loads of 'liberties' in her final few weeks with us I was only too happy to let her eat all the things that she loved , she would do absolutley anything for raw beef :eek: so if I was making stew she would get some tasty treats ... she also loved cheese and evaporated milk , things I normally gave her as a few and far between treat... she thought she had gone to heaven when she realised that as far as we were concerned she only had to bat her eyelashes and anything was possible.. I spent so much time with her , grooming and chatting and wandering in the garden while she followed at my heels... wonderful times.....

I love cats too...

tishywish

Thanks for updating us, hopefully the antibiotics will do the trick At least you've got a capsule you can open rather than having to stress her out with a pill every time!

Cats are wonderful Mine rules the roost, spoilt doesn't cover half of it!

mineallmine

Reading these posts have brought tears to the old eyes, very sweet stories.

Good to hear the vet has taken a look. Like others have said, lots of treats. a tin of sardines gives them a real glug of vitamin enriched oils too.

I'd also be super super clinical to avoid anything else upsetting it during the recovery. For instance, you can buy a handwash called Hibiscrub (or Hebescrub) from Boots which is excellent at cleaning hands etc before preparing to give them the antibiotic. Maybe also give their food/water bowls at extra hot wash. Give her blanket a wash and airing. That sort of thing.

Maybe give her an extra brush with a cat brush, I think the cleaning process helps them feel better.

Have you had her claws cut recently? Sometimes they can catch/aggravate things if their claws are a bit too long.

Plus I think doing these sorts of things helps you feel better too.

A friend's labradors eyes kept running with gunk. Another friend suggested boiling water with a bit of salt in, then let it cool. Then use it to clean the eye. Obviously very carefully dabbing using the weak solution. It worked. Maybe not suitable for all.

Cuddles to all cats out there, young and old.