Ollie Update after his follow up today at the vet.
Infections are all gone. Ulcer in his bad eye could not be located with the staining. That was a quick heal up.
Third eyelid is somewhat mobile which is good. What’s left is lots and lots of healing of a very complicated structure (eye). There were active blood vessels seen which is good and a sign that his eye is a keeper. What kind of function or appearance it will have is in God’s hands at this point. Scar tissue is the concern that might rob him of sight in that eye.
We just need to keep doing what we are doing and give it time. No vaccines / tests / “fixing” until the eye healing reaches it’s peak result. Nothing to strain / stress his immune system that has just been through a lot.
He was 2lbs 3oz’s on 6-9 and is not 3lbs 6oz’s today. Appears to be catching up on a lot of growth he missed out on due to illness / malnutrition / dehydration.
Vet thinks he’s older than earlier thought - perhaps as much as 12 weeks old and his growth was stunted because of everything.
As far as they can tell (without testing) - he is a very healthy kitty right now recovering from something pretty taxing. He’s certainly very happy and super playful and quite bonded to me.
Figured I would send an Ollie update. It’s been a few days…
Not exactly easy to see but we’ve got a pupil now in the bad eye. This is the first day that it’s actually been round, functional, and symmetrical. Until today, the pupil had very jagged edges and didn’t adjust to light. We’ve got some color too. Third eyelid is still swollen but that’s better too. He’s got a shot of looking somewhat normal and having a functioning left eye.
Another couple more days on the street and he would have been dead. He’s lucky he found us and we are lucky and happy to have him.
He’s off a couple medications tomorrow. Last internal med ends on Monday. Just eye drops / gel after that until further notice. Another follow up vet check next week at some point unless our vet makes a house call - she’s family.
He still isn’t passing my night vision camera test though. No glow in that eye yet.
He is such a friendly / affectionate / playful kitten. He still loves me even though I force him to take these meds multiple times a day.
I need to find a picture of him in the little bowtie collar my daughter bought him. He actually doesn’t mind it but I always take it off of him because he doesn’t need any more stress right now.
It is the cardinals that peck on our windows and the mirrors on our cars. They only attack our garage windows which are mirrored and are attacking another bird (themselves). I am going to make shutters for the garage windows and the wife knitted covers for the car mirrors…lol
Our most recent visitor. When he first returned it was at night. He stole 2 of our squirrel proof feeders so we started bringing all the feeders in at night. Now he’s showing up during the day. Chased him away from the bird feeders so he moved to the trash cans which were set out for pickup that day.
Our latest invader from overseas has taken over my area. I kill hundreds of these lantern fly nymphs daily. The more I kill, the more there are. They have pretty much wiped out my sunflowers before they even got to 6 feet tall.
We dealt with these last year.. and I’ve seen a few this year so far. (Stage 1 right now, at least.)
Allegedly the key is finding affected trees and getting to them before they “hatch.” Look for shaved/bubbled bark, it should be pretty obvious which ones they’re spawning from.
Stage 2 (red w/black+white spots) is pretty difficult to kill as they hop around pretty quickly. once they sprout wings though, they can only jump/glide 2-3 times in a row, making them easy pickings.
There’s a reason why I’ve spent a good deal of time and expense over my lifetime in cultivating a favorable environment for these fascinating creatures, and predatory insects of a similar bent - a habit learned @ my elder’s knees.
Seeking to strike an ecological balance sadly seems to get little but short shrift, in the hustle & bustle of our hectic modern lives, from all-too many of us - but ya can’t fool Mother Nature.
I take great pleasure in hunting these things on a daily basis in my garden. Killed a lot of them yesterday with my bare hands since my soap solution did further damage to my garden. I’m noticing less of them recently but I’m sure that’s just on my little piece of property.
Going to invest in a few preying mantis egg sacks next spring. I understand they like to dine on them. I am seeing a lot more ladybug babies that look nothing like ladybugs. I’ve read that they dine on them as well so that’s good.
Nature usually finds a way to neutralize threats like this and I hope it does with this too. I remember the gypsy moth fiasco in the 80’s with everyone taping up their trees and having all their trees sprayed. Doubt we will see that spraying with this though because I am sure most of those insecticides have been banned… I haven’t seen a gypsy moth in decades so we did get that under control, at least around here.
He’s doing so well thank God. He had just woken up from a nap on my chest (I edited my face out of this) so his bad eye wasn’t opened all the way yet. The cloudy spot in his eye continues to shrink. In totality, it’s not the same color as the other one but it continues to lighten up. He’s unlikely to keep his blue eyes so the other one might be changing at a different rate to that typical orangeish color gingers have.
In med / bright light, the cloudy spot doesn’t obstruct his pupil and I covered his good eye this morning and shook a toy in front of his face and he reached for it so HE CAN SEE out of it, it seems.
The vet isn’t in a rush for us to haul him in because she can see from the pics we text her twice a day that it’s going in the right direction. The 2nd picture was 6 days ago. You can see how thick and red the area inside the eye is. All of that is gone now and there’s just a tiny cloudy spot left that’s shrinking by about 50% every day.
The only thing he’s on right now is L-Lycine powder that I dissolve in water and give him in an oral syringe twice a day and topical ointment for just the bad eye. All other internals / eye drops have been stopped.
He’s literally doubled his weight and size since June 9th - now over 4lbs. Anxious to get him tested for feline aids / leukemia so we can bring him into our house bc we spend most of our waken hours upstairs in my In-Laws place where he is for now. They are at their summer cottage till Oct.
He’s a precious kitty. So attached to me. It’s very cute even though I’ve been torturing him with medications for the last few weeks.
The next hurdle will be getting him and my other 12 year old cat to meet and get along. She’s been meowing for her brother since Jan 30th (the day we put him down from cancer).
The last picture taken of my Charlie buddy… He was one special cat. Miss him every day. His face is still my screen saver on this laptop.
I’ve had to say goodbye to two of my cats the past few years. Saying goodbye doesn’t get any easier. I still miss my doggies too even though they’ve been gone 10-15 years.
Thank you for taking such good care of these precious babies.
He was one special cat. Miss him every day. His face is still my screen saver on this laptop.
Pets are cherished family members.
