Hoping for the Best

Monkey as a kitty

Hoping for the Best

Monkey, my black “winter cat,” recently spent a week in the closet—and we spent the week trying to figure out why.

We picked Monkey out at the Driftless Human Society nine winters ago. What sets him apart, besides his sweet personality, are his fangs. His fangs overlap his bottom lip, giving him a slightly vampirish appearance, but fortunately, this causes him no problems.

Monkey likes to sit on the counter and watch me with his big, round, green eyes. He’d rather wait to be petted than rush over with the rest of the gang to eat kibble.

Almost two weeks ago, I heard hissing and was surprised to find out it was Monkey. When I bent down to see why he was hissing, I noticed he was dragging his back legs. The field vet was coming out the following day for Vincent Van Goat, who wouldn’t put his back leg down, so we got Monkey settled and waited.

By morning Monkey had moved to a box in my closet and was still there when the vet came to check him out. Thankfully, she said his back legs were fine, no breaks (nor was Vincent’s leg broken). She chalked it up to tomfoolery and gave Monkey prednisone to reduce inflammation.

But Monkey didn’t get better. I hand-fed him, dribbled water in his mouth, and carried him to the litter box, where nothing happened. He didn’t pee or poo, and he dragged his lower half around.

Four days after starting prednisone, with no improvement, I took him to our dog and cat vet in Viroqua. They did x-rays and confirmed that nothing was broken. After examining him, they decided he might have suffered a neurological injury and a possible infection, so they sent me home with antibiotics.

Monkey still meowed to be petted but he stayed in the closet. He would drag himself to the litter box but had no success, so back to the vet we went. His bladder was the size of a small water balloon. The vet showed me how to release it, but there was nothing we could do about his nonfunctioning bowels. With more tests and research it was decided that he had pulled-tail syndrome. But who would pull dear Monkey’s tail?

Pulled-tail syndrome is serious. It affects the nerves in the lower tail and spine and often causes difficulty in a cat being able to go to the bathroom. Back home we went, with instructions on how to help Monkey with his bladder and how to take his legs through a full range of motion a few times a day.

We were still perplexed about how his tail could have been pulled. Mentally I blamed the UPS man whose drives too fast on our road, the mail person who recently missed my driveway and drove into my front yard, my two bigger dogs that like to roughhouse, and Leo, my youngest cat who plays too hard.

Recently I found a picture of Monkey when he was little. His tail is so long it goes out of the photo and comes back in! Could Monkey’s long tail be part of the problem?

The x-rays and exams showed no damage to his tail and no teeth marks or wounds. It’s a good thing I kept the blame to myself. According to the vet, a cat can get its tail caught in any number of things, then pull to get it out. Who knew?

What I do know is that my heart aches for Monkey. He doesn’t seem to be in pain except when he tries to use the litter box. We were feeding him by hand and getting water in him by mixing canned food with water, but then he stopped eating. And I was having a heck of a time releasing his bladder.

Now he’s been at the vet’s for the past five days, where they can give him fluids intravenously and help him more effectively with his bathroom hygiene. He’s also had a few acupuncture treatments.

The house isn’t the same without Monkey. I miss seeing him on the counter, waiting to be petted, his eyes following my every move.

Tomorrow we’ll pick him up from the vet. I’m guessing he’ll head straight for the closet again, where he feels the safest. We can only hope for the best.

Monkey as a teen