My Baby Bear

As many of my friends and family know, we're cat people. We have three. Teddy, my oldest, turned 17 last week, September 17th. Spotty is the middle child, he'll be 15 next February, and the baby, Boomer will be 4 next May.

We came home the other day to find Teddy with one of his eyes kinds closed with the bottom eye lid protruding up. His eye looked as if it has sunk back into his head. He is seventeen, but he still loves to fight with his brothers, so at first thought, we determined it was possibly a war wound from play.

We made an appointment with the vet and did a little research and had a few ideas of possibilities. The vet determined that we needed to schedule an x-ray and go ahead and start a round of antibiotics and set an appointment for Tuesday 9/27 for the  x-ray.

We dropped off Ted this morning (9/27). I stopped by the vet this afternoon to pick him up and find out what the x-ray had found. Unfortunately the news confirmed that he does have Horner's Syndrome in his right eye. (Link to a page about Horner's Syndrome in Cats.) Basically it's a common neurological disorder of the eye and facial muscles that can be caused by a multitude of underlying problems. What we had discovered in the x-ray was that Teddy has a tumor behind his right eye. It's about the size of a dime right now.  I guess we missed a few signs over time. He has had a tic in his paw for a while which is a symptom of the tuner like the Horner's Syndrome.

N
o, maybe he's not a real child, but he's been my baby for almost 16 years. It would be difficult for anyone to deal with.  He's fine for now. He's happy, eating like a piggy, and still loves to cuddle with me on the couch and purr away. We may have him for 6 more months or a few more years. There's no guarantee.

I'll enjoy it as long as I can!