We spent almost the entire day Thursday at the vet clinic with Piccolo, our (now) eldest cat. He was recently (last month) diagnosed with spondyloarthrosis, a joint disease of the vertebral column. It’s a very painful, degenerative condition…

Thanks to my research online, however, for the past two weeks he has been having laser therapy at the vet clinic, three times a week. These sessions have proven to be extremely beneficial: he’s no longer in pain, which means he’s able to walk around the house, stairs included.

I’ve also been giving him a daily dose of cortisone and, until a couple of days ago (when all hell broke loose, as you will read below), a bit of curcumin, the same C3 Complex that I take, mixed in with his food. I will resume the curcumin this evening, now that things have settled down a bit…

Okay, so here’s what happened: about a week ago, perhaps a bit longer (it seems like a century ago to me!), I noticed that he didn’t seem to be able to focus on anything. He wouldn’t look into my eyes, for example, not even when I was at eye level. In short, he didn’t seem all there. In the beginning, I thought it might be because of the pain from his spondylosis…but when this “space cadet” condition persisted, I asked the vets to check his eyesight.

A few days ago the vet ophthalmologist confirmed my suspicions, unfortunately: Piccolo is completely blind in one eye, his right one, and almost completely blind in his left eye; he sees just enough to avoid obstacles.

But that isn’t it. The following occurred just a few nights ago, Wednesday night to be precise: Piccolo began walking in circles. Stefano and I knew something was terribly wrong, so we took him to the vet clinic first thing in the morning. Our vet did a few tests and confirmed that it must have been caused by some sort of neurological problem and set up a CAT scan for the following afternoon.

The good news is that the scan was negative for brain tumors or anything life-threatening. In fact, the vets found very little that would explain Piccolo’s sudden (and almost complete) blindness. They suspect it was caused by something like a TIA or mild stroke that might heal a bit in time, and that is definitely good news, of course. Since there is really nothing wrong with his eyes, nothing that would explain the blindness, according to the ophthalmologist, it is in fact possible that some day he might be able to regain a bit of his sight. Or not.

His blood tests have also improved since July. Definitely good news, there.

An aside: we spent so much time in the vet clinic on Thursday (eye tests and blood tests in the morning, and then the CAT scan and his laser therapy in the afternoon/evening) that we came to know some of the furry or feathery patients…and their humans, too, of course.

And some of the stories we heard on Thursday made me realize that, in spite of these difficult furry times, we have been very, indeed VERY lucky. Unlike other folks, in fact, we’ve never really had to deal with any major health problems with our cats until recently. Well, come to think of it, there have been a couple of things in the past (mainly with Piccolo, as it were), but we managed to get past them without too much heartbreak.

Anyway, case in point: on Thursday afternoon, at one point, a distraught young man came out of one of the examining rooms holding his adorable 11-month-old kitty. I heard him utter the words “chemo…useless…transfusions haven’t worked…” After he’d left, we learned that this poor little kitty had a fulminating type of cancer (blood cancer, I daresay) with a dire prognosis. The kitty had already had three blood transfusions…I forget now if she’d had some chemo, too, but at any rate, nothing had worked. But since she was still so young and alert, and in fact she looked just fine to me, poor dear, her human had made the decision not to have her euthanized. He took her home…to die. I asked the clinic’s secretary if the kitty would suffer. She said, no, that wouldn’t happen.

So sad…

Unlike this young man, at least we’ve had many happy years with our beloved cats. No cancer, no horrible deaths at a young age, blablabla. And, as I said, Piccolo, who is now more than 14 years old, will probably get a bit better, in time, with curcumin, cortisone, and a specific brain neuron-healing product that contains, among other things, fish oil and resveratrol…eh.

I’d like to end my post with a positive note. Early this morning I woke up and found all the cats on alert because of a thunderstorm. Piccolo was restless and wandering around, too.  Well, to my surprise, he walked up to me, resting his head against my leg, for the first time in days and then followed me around as I checked the windows to make sure it wasn’t raining in. I reached down to pet him and then spent several minutes rubbing and scratching him…He didn’t purr (he hasn’t purred for days, unfortunately), but he seemed content enough. And that is when I began feeling that we’d turned a corner. Finally.

He also slept a lot today, for the first time since we brought him home on Thursday evening.

One last, obvious thing: the world is full of blind cats, and Piccolo is not even completely blind. So I’m sure he will figure it out, and we will do our best to help him.

Everything is going to be fine…