Gina & Yittle (GA)
Active Member
Why does it always seem like cat health issues sneak up on you. Darn sneaky cats....
We've got an elderly civvie in our house - Phoenix, she's a pastel calico (grey, orange, white), very sweet girl - a little ditzy. We know she'll be at least 16 this February, possibly much older since we've found out the local HS had a habit of saying any cat that was more then about 1.5 years old and under 7-8 years old (if they didn't have definitive proof of age) was "about 2" - and she was "about 2" when we adopted her. So she could be 17, 18, 19... even 20 - we just don't know. She's actually not "our" cat - she was Yittle's cat. When he was a kitten he was a holy terror and had to be less then 3 feet away from or in physical contact at all times (awake or asleep, except when using the litter box) with either me or our calico Boo. She and I got tired of never getting any sleep and we decided we'd adopt a 3rd cat so he'd have somebody else to be with. We thought a nice 2 year old female would be a good choice, they said it was possible she'd had kittens before being rescued and we said ah good, she'll be all maternal. Not.... But she did a good job of keeping him distracted. Over the years as we got more cats she's just remained the Omega - doesn't matter who's been added, their gender, age, anything - she's just the bottom of the totem pole here. But it never seemed to mind her much, we'd keep them from doing her any serious harm and she never really was upset - 2 minutes after somebody pounces on her she's half asleep and purring her butt off so its been manageable.
Over the years we've spent thousands on her medical care - bluntly because the HS knew she had a health condition and did not disclose it to us when we adopted her. We learned this several years later when we were about to put her to sleep because she was naked from the neck down to her tail, covered in sores from chewing on herself and throwing up 10-12 times a day. We had exhausted just about every option at that time and felt we needed to stop her suffering when a former worker from the HS came running into the vet examination room and asked if she could see the cat. Said she remembered her unusual name from her days at the HS and wanted to see if she was the same cat. She was - proof positive being the cat jumping happily into her arms and greeting her like an old friend. Turned out she'd nearly died several times before they adopted her out and had been in this situation before - due to an extreme flea allergy. Since we didn't let our cats out, it hadn't occured to us that this could be the case but from then on we agressively kept any fleas from her and she regrew all her fur and recovered. Back when we trusted flea collars we kept one on her regardless of the fact all our cats were inside only, later we switched to using the transdermal treatments anytime she went to the vet, or any other cat went to the vet for more then a shot (ie stayed over) or any cat was added to the house, or any cat owned by someone we knew had a flea problem. That and a few courses of steroids and she was good to go for life pretty much. I'd say its been almost a decade since then and she's been happy and reasonably healthy until this past year. She's got a minor seizure disorder but its just petite mal ones and she never loses her footing or falls over - she just spaces out and then comes back to us a few seconds later (and her whiskers and ears twitch). She's got a bad heart murmer but at this point there's not a lot we can do with that (grade 3 of 5?). And she's got some lingering issues with her blood work - we wouldn't want to put her under anethesia anymore although in the past we made sure she had dental cleanings and all that stuff. She's the hairball queen, we've taught her that if she pukes on hard surfaces (not carpet or furniture) is fine and she won't get in trouble and we'll give her a nice pet afterwards to make her feel better, so thats not a huge deal really.
Last spring she started missing the occaisional meal - sleeping through it. I figured since we were feeding Yittle 6-8x a day, that she was just eating his Fancy Feast and ignoring the scheduled "all kitties" Friskies breakfast and dinner. Then he died and we trapped Kerry and again I was doleing out Fancy Feast to him since he was very small - and she always showed up for that. I thought eh, she just ignores the "big can" sound. Well, the last 2 or so months she's started missing meals more and more - or rather, not missing because if a cat doesn't show up we track their fuzzy butt down and poke them to make sure they know. But we were having to find her more often. When we would track her down she'd immediately run in and eat so she wasn't actually missing eating - more like missing the dinner bell I guess. We noticed she was a bit more skittish but Kerry is so playful we just assumed he was pouncing on her more. After Yittle died we had a battle for alpha cat - Nicholas Von Icklestein had it from June - October, but once we let Kerry out in general population despite the fact he's 9-10 pounds and Nicholas is 19lbs, well um, Kerry pwned him and took over. Its the funniest thing ever having the smallest cat in the house be alpha. It just seemed normal she might be a bit skittish with Yittle gone (he picked on her, but he also protected her from the other cats - she was HIS) and the whole rumble for the top spot.
Until this week - when I realized she's apparently almost entirely deaf - I went to wake her up for dinner and decided to try doing it without poking her and it couldn't be done. I said her name, yelled her name, clapped my hands over her head loudly, banged on the can with the spoon - not so much as an ear twitch. It wasn't until I stomped my foot on the floor that she picked her head up (vibrations I guess). So we're going to take her into the vet next week when we can get an appointment and not be under a foot of snow - but I figure besides making sure she doesn't have an ear infection or wax build up there's probably not a lot that can be done.
Any tips on how to deal with a deaf cat? - We have instituted a policy of ALWAYS waking her up before meals are handed out so she won't miss out on them, but beyond that and knowing that if I need her attention I have to make vibrations and not sound I'm not sure what else we can do. She seems ok - she's spending a bit more time in my lap but thats partly because Yittle doesn't dominate it now. I think she can hear a little in the upper ranges - she shows no sign of hearing our voices but there was a huge cat fight yesterday and somebody did a very high pitched blood curdleing scream of protest (they're fine, they just were pissed off) and she did turn her head and ears towards that. But its the only thing I've seen her react to since I started watching a few days ago.
We've got an elderly civvie in our house - Phoenix, she's a pastel calico (grey, orange, white), very sweet girl - a little ditzy. We know she'll be at least 16 this February, possibly much older since we've found out the local HS had a habit of saying any cat that was more then about 1.5 years old and under 7-8 years old (if they didn't have definitive proof of age) was "about 2" - and she was "about 2" when we adopted her. So she could be 17, 18, 19... even 20 - we just don't know. She's actually not "our" cat - she was Yittle's cat. When he was a kitten he was a holy terror and had to be less then 3 feet away from or in physical contact at all times (awake or asleep, except when using the litter box) with either me or our calico Boo. She and I got tired of never getting any sleep and we decided we'd adopt a 3rd cat so he'd have somebody else to be with. We thought a nice 2 year old female would be a good choice, they said it was possible she'd had kittens before being rescued and we said ah good, she'll be all maternal. Not.... But she did a good job of keeping him distracted. Over the years as we got more cats she's just remained the Omega - doesn't matter who's been added, their gender, age, anything - she's just the bottom of the totem pole here. But it never seemed to mind her much, we'd keep them from doing her any serious harm and she never really was upset - 2 minutes after somebody pounces on her she's half asleep and purring her butt off so its been manageable.
Over the years we've spent thousands on her medical care - bluntly because the HS knew she had a health condition and did not disclose it to us when we adopted her. We learned this several years later when we were about to put her to sleep because she was naked from the neck down to her tail, covered in sores from chewing on herself and throwing up 10-12 times a day. We had exhausted just about every option at that time and felt we needed to stop her suffering when a former worker from the HS came running into the vet examination room and asked if she could see the cat. Said she remembered her unusual name from her days at the HS and wanted to see if she was the same cat. She was - proof positive being the cat jumping happily into her arms and greeting her like an old friend. Turned out she'd nearly died several times before they adopted her out and had been in this situation before - due to an extreme flea allergy. Since we didn't let our cats out, it hadn't occured to us that this could be the case but from then on we agressively kept any fleas from her and she regrew all her fur and recovered. Back when we trusted flea collars we kept one on her regardless of the fact all our cats were inside only, later we switched to using the transdermal treatments anytime she went to the vet, or any other cat went to the vet for more then a shot (ie stayed over) or any cat was added to the house, or any cat owned by someone we knew had a flea problem. That and a few courses of steroids and she was good to go for life pretty much. I'd say its been almost a decade since then and she's been happy and reasonably healthy until this past year. She's got a minor seizure disorder but its just petite mal ones and she never loses her footing or falls over - she just spaces out and then comes back to us a few seconds later (and her whiskers and ears twitch). She's got a bad heart murmer but at this point there's not a lot we can do with that (grade 3 of 5?). And she's got some lingering issues with her blood work - we wouldn't want to put her under anethesia anymore although in the past we made sure she had dental cleanings and all that stuff. She's the hairball queen, we've taught her that if she pukes on hard surfaces (not carpet or furniture) is fine and she won't get in trouble and we'll give her a nice pet afterwards to make her feel better, so thats not a huge deal really.
Last spring she started missing the occaisional meal - sleeping through it. I figured since we were feeding Yittle 6-8x a day, that she was just eating his Fancy Feast and ignoring the scheduled "all kitties" Friskies breakfast and dinner. Then he died and we trapped Kerry and again I was doleing out Fancy Feast to him since he was very small - and she always showed up for that. I thought eh, she just ignores the "big can" sound. Well, the last 2 or so months she's started missing meals more and more - or rather, not missing because if a cat doesn't show up we track their fuzzy butt down and poke them to make sure they know. But we were having to find her more often. When we would track her down she'd immediately run in and eat so she wasn't actually missing eating - more like missing the dinner bell I guess. We noticed she was a bit more skittish but Kerry is so playful we just assumed he was pouncing on her more. After Yittle died we had a battle for alpha cat - Nicholas Von Icklestein had it from June - October, but once we let Kerry out in general population despite the fact he's 9-10 pounds and Nicholas is 19lbs, well um, Kerry pwned him and took over. Its the funniest thing ever having the smallest cat in the house be alpha. It just seemed normal she might be a bit skittish with Yittle gone (he picked on her, but he also protected her from the other cats - she was HIS) and the whole rumble for the top spot.
Until this week - when I realized she's apparently almost entirely deaf - I went to wake her up for dinner and decided to try doing it without poking her and it couldn't be done. I said her name, yelled her name, clapped my hands over her head loudly, banged on the can with the spoon - not so much as an ear twitch. It wasn't until I stomped my foot on the floor that she picked her head up (vibrations I guess). So we're going to take her into the vet next week when we can get an appointment and not be under a foot of snow - but I figure besides making sure she doesn't have an ear infection or wax build up there's probably not a lot that can be done.
Any tips on how to deal with a deaf cat? - We have instituted a policy of ALWAYS waking her up before meals are handed out so she won't miss out on them, but beyond that and knowing that if I need her attention I have to make vibrations and not sound I'm not sure what else we can do. She seems ok - she's spending a bit more time in my lap but thats partly because Yittle doesn't dominate it now. I think she can hear a little in the upper ranges - she shows no sign of hearing our voices but there was a huge cat fight yesterday and somebody did a very high pitched blood curdleing scream of protest (they're fine, they just were pissed off) and she did turn her head and ears towards that. But its the only thing I've seen her react to since I started watching a few days ago.
we realized 
