Marveling at the non-observiness of me

[fenchurch]

And then there's the other thing that happened this last weekend... which sort of deserves its own entry.

I came to a rather startling realization on Friday. It was one of those things that should have been really obvious and after I finally realized what was going on, all sorts of things started to click into place (and not just that feeling that I'd been really, really unobservant).

Our cat Polly is blind. On one hand, I really don't know how we could have missed this... and yet, I think it's been happening to her so gradually that she just adjusted and adapted, so there's no reason we really should have known. It does explain a whole lot, though... like why she is so freaked out by Zoë. Why she constantly acts like Zoë is going to jump out of nowhere and ambush her, even though Zoë's never actually done that (in Polly's perception, just strolling up to her without warning is the same as an ambush). It also explains why she started to relax a little after we put a collar with a tag on Zoë so that she jingles. And why she quit playing with string a few years ago. And why she mostly just stays in the one room downstairs. And any number of other things.

It all came out on Friday... I'd been laying back, reading, and Polly had settled in on my chest. It was then that I noticed she was staring right at me, with the light behind me, and her pupils were fully dilated (the dilated pupils was something I'd noticed with her in the past year, but had just figured it was because she was so freaked out by the new cat). So I wiggled my fingers in front of her face and got no reaction. Hmm... just cat aloofness? (Which, I'll admit, is what we'd been attributing all the other signs to, all this time.) So I slowing and quietly moved a finger closer to one her eyes... and if I hadn't brushed an eyelash, I would have been able to touch her eyeball. She flinched back a bit at that point, but not like she just noticed a finger about to touch her eye... more like she thought something had landed on her face and she was trying to shake it off.

After rackham got home from work, I came up with what was probably the ultimate test... string. It has no real smell, doesn't disturb the air around it and doesn't really block any light. Once upon a time, she used to love to play with string... but she hadn't shown an interest for awhile. Well, I dangled it in front her and she stared blankly through it. And then I brought it over and touched her face with it. After the initial small flinch away, she realized what it was and started to play... having what appeared to be an absolute blast with it! (And yes, here's where I started to feel REALLY guilty, because I quit trying to play with her when she started ignoring string.) But only when it was touching her... if we took it away at all, she'd just sort of freeze as if waiting for it to touch her again. We could dangle it right in front of her face with absolutely no effect, but the moment it touched her, she was off having a great time again.

She's an older cat, around 14/15 years old... and thinking back on it, we're pretty sure she's been going blind for a few years now. Just going back to when she stopped playing with string and when she started getting a bit more jumpy. We'd assumed it was just because she was getting older... now we have a different cause to consider. The thing is, she really has adapted quite well. And over the weekend, we were much more careful around her... making sure we made noise to let us know where we were and who we were, making sure we didn't move things around too much and that there weren't things around that would startle her since she couldn't see them, and she's been responding so well! She's already much more at ease and has started coming upstairs more, just to be closer to us. And did I mention guilt? Oh, yeah... I'm feeling a whole lot of guilt over this.

I'm going to be taking her in to see the vet when I get back from Gen-Con, just to make sure that this isn't a sign of some other illness... and to see if perhaps it's something easily fixable (though, as I said, I think this is a long term problem). Through trial and error, we've determined that she can actually still see large objects, especially if they contrast a lot with their surroundings, and she can sense changes in light... but that's it. Fortunately, I was able to find some info online about blind cats... and supposedly, blind housecats tend to live long and happy lives, as long as care is taken not to drastically change their environment. So, I guess we won't be doing much more rearranging of furniture for awhile.

Comments

[adjrun.livejournal.com]

My kitty Veronique went blind about... a year and a half ago? For her it was sudden, though, so very easy (and worrisome) to spot. She has hypertension, which caused a series of ministrokes and disorientation made her keep walking in these tight little circles. VERY freakout-enducing. She's also got some kidney disease which necessitates putting her on low-protein kibble.

Now that we medicate her daily, she's a lot happier. Apparently the hypertension is like walking around with a headache all the time, which would lead to understandable crankiness. And she gets around fine, she's just careful on the stairs or if climbing on the couch. Jumping is out, natch. She doesn't much like to be picked up, as she has to figure out where the heck she is when she's put back down. She's also gotten some light sensitivity back (her pupils dilate) though I doubt there's much vision along with that.

Anyway, it's been a good year since she lost her sight. And she's happy. I'm sure your kitty, despite the loss of vision, also has much future happy time in front of her.