Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Send more tuna! aka My Cat is on Prednisone

Zoe has something called a vestibular disorder. Basically, her head is tilted to the left side, and she's walking funny.

On Sunday she tried to jump up onto the kitchen counter but missed (missing is fairly normal, we don't have the most gracefull of cats in this household). I think on the way down she bashed her head. When she landed she started to do this thing that looked like she was trying to swim across the linoleum. We kept an eye on this behaviour, and talked to a friend who works in the vetrinary industry, and kept keeping an eye on things. Around midnight Zoe started yowling and looking for somewhere to hide, so we called the emerg vet clinic, packed up the cat and booted it to Cambridge.

The original diagnosis was bilateral vestibular disorder, which means the peripherhal vision in both eyes was affected. It's a neurological condition that can be brought on by anything from polyps in the ear canal to trauma to a stroke. Zoe spent the night at the emerg vet, then we picked her up at 7:30 am and tried to get a bit of sleep before going to our regular vet in the afternoon. The emerg vet had suggested trying to get Zoe in to see a neurologist, but by the time we got to see our own vet, the condition had improved enough that it's only affecting the left side of Zoe's head now and our vet felt that a $4000 MRI probably wouldn't tell us anything really pertinent. Whew!

So now I have added duties to the cat herding roster. In addition to needing to give Sabre a bit of aspirin every other day so that we don't have a repeat of the leg incident from last summer, Zoe gets two antibiotic pills a day, and one Prednisone pill a day.

Send tuna (for Zoe), send Bailey's (for me).

10 comments:

The Bears said...

We're so sorry! Poor Zoe.

Many Bears hugs for Zoe! And for you!

We'll get right on finding Jim's 'Merican 'Spress Card so we can ship lots of tuna to Zoe. And also find this Bailey's thing for you.

Feel better, Zoe!

OK Bears Hugs
Stompy, Blinky, Daphne Rose and All the Bears

jenn said...

*hugs* and *tuna* and *booze*

xox
jenn

CosmicAvatar said...

Awwwww, poor Zoe!

[hugs] [tuna]

Laurie said...

Poor kitty!

Hope she's feeling better soon.

allison said...

Poor wee Zoe. And poor wee Angela. [hugs] [tuna] [Bailey's]

Mindi Scott said...

Poor kitty! :-(

Yonners said...

Tuna for the Zoe & booze for Podgy! Spike has a really hard time taking pills (he literally spits them back out at me) so I'll send lots of alcohol! I'm glad that it wasn't a horrible thing and didn't require the 4000$ bill. Happy happy happy healing happy thoughts your way!

Lisa said...

Aw...poor sweetie! I hate giving cats pills. They really can hurt themselves with all that silliness can't they.

Hope you get your Bailey's - you deserve it!

Amanda said...

Poor kitty!

Dogeared said...

Sending much tuna for Zoe, and Baileys for you!