better now :)

[quietann]

Well, that went much better than expected. What happenned is that the abcess came to a head and broke into Myrtle's eye socket sometime during the night. The vet cleaned her up, and sent me home with antibiotic eye ointment, a painkiller, and instructions to give her hot compresses for 5 minutes 3 times a day. (The vet said she gave Myrtle a hot compress, and she didn't object at all. It probably felt good.)

All her blood work came back; as expected, she is anemic and her kidneys are not doing so great, but everything else was normal. When we got home, she went right to the food bowl and had a nice snack.

After watching her come down the stairs this morning, I've decided that stairs are too hard for her, so we've blocked the staircase and she is confined to the lower floor of the addition. She won't like it, but I also made her a nice little nest with a towel in a cat carrier with the door removed.

(She has just discovered the blocked staircase and is NOT happy about it. I am definitely a Stupid Human in her opinion...)

Comments

[gingicat]

I'm glad Myrtle will still be around for a while.

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

Perhaps carry her upstairs so she can visit her old digs?

[quietann.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid that will motivate her to try even harder to get up there. (She just tried to leap onto the first barrier -- which is about 2 1/2 feet high -- and fell backwards onto her rump in an obviously painful way...)

[bedfull-o-books.livejournal.com]

Oh, the poor thing.

Glad she is feeling better though.

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

maybe make it so she can only hang out upstairs and not down? Also, you might consider putting carpeting on a ramp, or on the steps themselves, to give her more traction so she doesn't slip, and has something to grab onto.

She also might prefer the minor bruises and ouchies to being restricted. What I'm saying is that the psychological pain of beign restricted might be more painful than her problems with stairs.

(she also might have left her favorite cattoy up stairs, and just wants to get it to snugle with it)

[scliff.livejournal.com]

Is there a modification you could make to the stairs that would make it
easier for her? (You didn't explain what was hard about them.) Perhaps half-steps (i.e. a bunch of 4"x4"x4" boxes) or a ramp running right against the wall, where it wouldn't interfere with humans?

[quietann.livejournal.com]

hm. We actually thought to do something like this a while ago, but couldn't come up with a way to do it. The stair case is hardwood and does a 270 degree turn with two landings halfway up. The stairs are the usual width --about 10 inches? Myrtle's gait is very clumsy -- she sort of half-hops, and can't turn very well. Her back legs are splayed outwards, and her remaining front leg gives out fairly easily. I think a ramp would be too steep. I really think that going down stairs is not safe for her at this point...

[donnad.livejournal.com]

If she can still make it on her own let her go up the stairs, you might consider putting a water dish and litter box up there so she doesn't have accidents because she is not able to make it down quickly enough, but she'll stop going up or down when she can't do it comfortably on her own anymore. Keep her happy, and if she is happy up stairs let her be. It's probably warmer up stairs for her as well. She may not be long for this world, let her be happydoing as she pleases.

But it is good to hear that she is going to be okay this time around.

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

If she is OK going up, but trouble going down, it's too bad you can't convince a cat to take a manufactured elevator that would be balanced to be at the top when empty, but will gently take her down if she gets into it.

[quietann.livejournal.com]

Ben and I actually talked about this when Midnight was still around, and getting arthritis in her front legs from being too fat. We concluded that it would be difficult if not impossible to teach a cat to use such a device.

[whitebird.livejournal.com]

Put cat litter in it and turn it into a mobile loo...