Civvie hit head on the way down from a fall

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Cindy & Pets

Cindy & Pets

Member Since 2012
So...spills, slips, and falls happen, right? Anyways....Christmas has been trying to get up on a cabinet that she's no longer allowed on as she started knocking things over. Well, in the fight to get her to stop, she's getting an A+ in determination. Except....we have a giant bag from an order my brother made up there to store it and it's slippery. Well, the cabinet is about 4.5 to 5ft tall, and she slipped and fell off the cabinet. Nobody could run and catch her on time and she hit her head on the computer desk on the way down. The desk is a little over 2.5ft tall.

Should I be worried that she hit her head on the desk on the way down? What all things should I look for to know if I should take her to the vet or not? She's taken her fair share of spills before, but never this high nor hitting her head on something on the way down. So I'm pretty worried on what I should be looking for in the way of possible head injuries, if any at all. Thanks in advance.
 
based on my experience with kitty head injuries, i would say watch for eyes getting big or non-responsive, staggering or stumbling when trying to walk, or extreme lethargy

years ago my late Kitty ran out the front door while we were moving some furniture out of the house. bizarrely right after she did so 2 dogs i'd never seen before ran up our street, saw her, and went for her. fortunately they didn't get her real well we thought and she ran up a tree in the neighbor's yard and i chased off the dogs with a sword (i know, but it was the first thing i could get my hands on and my sister stopped me pretty quick). anyhow, life went on and my brother in law climbed the tree and got her and brought her home and he and my sister left. Kitty was extremely upset. welllllll, i was royally pissed off like you wouldn't believe 'cause no one hurts my Kitty so I called animal control. they took all my info and said they'd send someone out. so i waited and i called my sister to let her know what was going on. shortly after, the lady from animal control showed up and while walking to the front door to let her in, i looked down at Kitty and her eyes were huge and they looked like they were bulging and she seemed weak. i freaked out. i opened the door and said something to the lady about "look at my cat!" and she told me to get her to the ER. and i did.

they found no puncture wounds or broken bones but they said her brain was swelling. i had to leave her there for the night for treatment and i went home without my Kitty. when I got home I walked around the whole yard retracing the attack on Kitty and right in the front of the house there were dog tracks and big indentations in the dirt, about the size of my Kitty. they were close enough to the house that we decided that when the dogs jumped on her they must have smacked her head against the house, causing the swelling. anyhow, they kept her there late into the night and let me call constantly to check on her. at some point in the wee hours of the morning i think they were tired of me because they said the swelling had gone down and she was up and about and if i wanted to come get her then she could come home. so i went and got her. :-)

she was very very skittish for some time afterwards and always had an attitude but other than that she never had any lingering effects from it.
 
Alright. She's been kind of lethargic since the fall, but I'm not sure if that's because of her allergy medicine or the fall....because her allergy medicine makes her that way. But she got that at 7pm and the fall happened at 9:00pm(all EST). It usually kicks in half an hour after she gets it and the lethargy lasts about an hour or so. She's still like that as well. I checked her eyes. But how will light effect(affect?) how dilated they are? She's in semi-decent light right now and the pupil takes up a good chunk of her eyes. Should I take a picture to help describe it better? Or?

EDIT: Oh, and besides being really sleepy, she's not acting any different from her usual self.
 
i'm not sure but i've asked around to see if anyone else has experience with head injuries in kittys. if she is responsive like she normally would be, i would think she's ok and you can just check on her every so often. i would think if there was going to be a problem it would be within the first few hours after the fall
 
I really appreciate the hug shai, thank you. :) She's still very tired and I'm still iffy on if I can get some sleep yet or not. It's 2am and Tip is due for testing and insulin at 6am.
Quick update: She's back to being alert after I moved her to a room with the lights out to check her eyes. They dilated perfectly. I think she was just aiming for a nap. But just to be on the safe side, about every hour to hour and a half I'm going to check up on her. She usually sleeps with me, so thankfully it's just a matter of rolling over and petting her a bit to see if she wakes up easy like she has been.
 
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