Morph

March

smoredogs6 Comments

March wasn’t what I’d hoped or expected, either in blogging or in real life.  March, quite frankly, sucked.

Dogs

The first problem with March was a carryover problem from February, Hershey and her damned dewclaw.  The cut she’d inflicted on her left paw by punching through my front window had been in a place where it could be stapled.  It had healed up beautifully; I’m not even sure where it was now.  The cut on her right paw had been in the space between her dewclaw and the rest of the paw.  It was in a tricky area, basically impossible to stitch or staple so the vet left it to heal on its own.  It had other ideas.

It was almost healed and then was opened up.  It almost healed from that and opened up again.  It almost healed from that and then it ripped Marsha’s ear open.

Let me explain:

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March

Caturday: Staring into the Abyss

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Shortly before leaving for Blog Paws I realized something.  Morph was having a hard time getting around, didn’t quite seem to know where he was at times (he’d almost gone out the back door by accident), and wasn’t interacting as much.  The wide eyes in full bright light up in the picture might give you an idea of what happened.  Morph had gone blind, at least mostly.

It seemed like a sudden onset as I only noticed him bumbling around the house a few days before, but his sight may well have been deteriorating for some time.  He’s had episodes of piteous, soul shattering yowling at night for months.  I’ve not been sure what to make of this, other than being damned annoyed by it. Now a plausible explanation seems that he was disoriented in the dark and didn’t know where he was. Knowing this has only made the yowling a tad less annoying.  During the day he had enough light to get around. Now even full daylight isn’t enough.

There had been concern about his blood pressure before, eventually finding normal results, but now the vet’s working theory is there have been spikes in blood pressure that have done damage to the insanely fine and delicate blood vessels in his eyes.  She put him on a blood pressure medication in hopes that will take some pressure off the delicate vessels and give them a chance to heal, maybe giving him some of his sight back.   It’s a human medication in a tiny pill and he needs to take it at cat doses, so I have to force a quarter of a tiny pill down the throat of a handicapped cat every morning.

He may not see well, but he can still look resentful.

Recovery is no sure thing though, but over the last couple of weeks he’s been on the medication his eyes seem to have gotten much more responsive to bright light.  He’s not seeing perfectly, he’s mistaken Hershey on the couch for me on a couple of occasions and neither of us are having fun getting the tiny pills down his throat each day, but he’s doing OK.  Cats are built for operating in the dark, and now that it’s not as dark for him as it had been he seems more like his old self.

Caturday: Staring into the Abyss

Thregger

smoredogs4 Comments
img_5499
(Left to Right) Perch and the subject today, Morph.

Yes, the name of this blog is S’more Dogs and I am generally finding them easier to write about, but I am the senior staffer to four cats as well.  Since this is my first Saturday post, and I’ve heard something about this whole “Caturday,” thing I thought I’d give it a shot.

Sharing seniority with his litter mate Perch is the subject of today’s post:  Morph, full name Morpheus.  He’s not named for the Matrix Character but for Greek god of dreams from which that character takes his name.*

At first glance Morph is a brown mackerel tabby, a no-frills, ‘base model‘  cat, nothing terribly distinguishing about him.  But then, he gets up and stops hiding that right side…

Thregger
NOT War of the Worlds cosplay, just Morph’s daily reality.

He didn’t start life as a three-legger (which I started calling him and quickly shortened to “thregger.”) but lost his leg to a slow growing bone cancer in 2011.

He gets along amazingly well as a Tripawd.  He got to the top of my 8ft high cat climber, still full of stitches and looking like one of Dr. Frankenstein’s experiments the first week he was home!  My worries that his litter mates would start picking on him proved to be unfounded, and he’s been the same, overly sweet, often obnoxious self as he ever was!

Anyone have any three-legger stories or advice, I’d love to hear them!

 

*See, this is what I’ve done to myself.  All my cats have names with layers of meaning that require explanation.  I like to think that the dogs, being fairly obvious creatures, have fairly obvious names.  Mostly black Marsha(mellow) might have an issue with this however….

Thregger