4 posts tagged “eva”

You all know about our kitty Eva, right?   She's the one that is really clumsy, always running into things, falling off of things, we thought she might be blind, but the kittycat ophthalmologist told us she was probably just retarded?

Well today I was making my rounds and I was poking around ICHC, a daily favorite, when I saw a link to a video about Charley, a kittycat with cerebellar hypoplasia  (scroll down to "spastic cats". Affected cats are also sometimes referred to as "spastic.")

Anyway, I'm grateful to Charley's owners for posting the video.  Eva does the same wobbly-headed thing sometimes, and she definitely falls off of things, and has a funny run.   It's not as pronounced as Charley's, but, well, it appears to be the same sort of thing.  I knew she had brain damage, per the kitty ophthalmologist, but it's nice to have a name for it now.

The bad news is, Eva kitty has been deemed to have some "neurological developmental disabilities, probably in her cerebellum."   i.e. Girl's ridin' the shortbus to school!

We went to the kittycat opthamologist today (thank FSM this is Richmond, where housing is affordable and so are specialty vet visits--it only set us back $80, i was expecting twice that) and he took a look at her eyes and said they looked normal, healthy, great!   Then he watched her walk around for a bit, bonking her nose into everything she sniffs, tiptoeing around the office, stumbling over things in her path, misjudging distances and lunging into things...  He said that it's not her eyes, she's not going blind.  He thinks that when she was developing, some sort of neurological damage happened, whether it's naturally occuring (ie random) or from a virus or something her mother may have had.  He thinks she's, to put it kindly, a wee bit mildly retarded.  He said she tracks well visually and can follow things with her eyes, but she has a problem processing some of the information and therefore misjudges her body's movements, which accounts for her weird gait, her strange mannerisms and a huge amount of her clumsiness.

He said, "Well, the good news is, she's not blind, she's not going blind, she shouldn't go blind anytime soon.  On the other hand, you've got a funny little weird kitten on your hands, and she's going to be funny and weird forever!"  

I laughed and replied, "She'll fit in just fine with the rest of us, then,  I reckon."

Eva kitten went to the vet the other day to get examined for her clumsiness.  FIP and toxoplasmosis were ruled out, and that left severe nearsightedness, and poor pupil reaction time, indicating a fair level of functional blindness and possible metal retardation. 

Well, at least she's not SICK.   

So we will be permanently closing the cat door by buying a new back door, and we will return to buying cat litter in bulk at Costco.  We are sad at this turn of events, but at least it is not a fatal disease or anything.  If her behavior worsens, we are to take her to the kitty opthamologist to check for cataracts or other "fixable" problems.  We are not the type of people to spend thousands of dollars on blind cats, so it is unlikely we'll go that route.  I've lived with blind animals before, it is mostly hilarious/sad to watch them constantly crash into shit.  Twice at Dr Jack's office, Eva jumped off the exam table and SMACk into the wall.  Oh, boobookitty!    Oh well, at least she showed off her exxxxtreme clumsiness!

So we went from one special-needs cat (Chet, the PissMaster 8000) to another.  Eva-Full-of-Grace, we love you, babykitten.  Even if you are ornery as hell.  I'd be ornery as hell if I kept crashing into everything all the time, too.  xoxoxo.