Today I'm going to do something that I never envisioned myself doing before...I'm starting a blog. Not just any blog, but a blog about a cat. Now I'm not what you would call a fanatic pet owner. Sure I've loved all the pets I've had over the years...cats, dogs, birds, fish (well, "love" may be too strong a word for the fish) even turtles and snakes briefly. I've never felt the need to write about an animal, until now. So why start blogging about a pet now? The reason will be revealed later in this post as well as the true purpose for this blog. First, let me introduce you to Pika.
One day in February 2001 we were driving along Touhy Ave. in Niles Illinois, we being my girlfriend Betty, her daughter Jenny and me. I was in culinary school at the time and wanted to grow some herbs in our kitchen window to use in my cooking. Up in Niles there's a nursery called Meinke Garden Center that's been there forever, I asked if they would mind if we stopped there so I could pick up some herb seeds.
As I was perusing the seed selection, I heard the cashier ask Jenny "Would you like to see some kittens?". Well of course, who wouldn't want to see some kittens? We had recently adopted a cat from a shelter, a solid black girl we named Boo after a cat I had while growing up, so we naturally followed the employee to another greenhouse. There we saw a litter of kittens that couldn't have been more than a week or so old, so young that their eyes hadn't opened yet. One of them stood out from all the others, it was a grey and white one with a pink nose who was louder that all the rest and always fought it's way to the top of the pile. He was so small that he easily fit in the palm of my hand with room to spare. "You know, we're adopting them out if you're interested." the employee said, and that was it. We left with my packets of seeds and a promise to come back to pick up our new cat when he was weaned. Several weeks later we received a call from Meinke's telling us to come pick up our kitten, he was destroying their plants! And so, we brought him home.
Boo really didn't know what to think of Pika when we brought him home. He was still a tiny thing, with a stumpy little tail and eyes that were way too big for his little noggin. At first we only put them together for short periods under supervision. Boo would hiss at him, after all this was HER house, but he would keep on going up to her until she just accepted him as her brother. As Pika grew bigger, his tail seemed to stay a little stubby. Betty used to grab his tail and joke that she'd stretch it out to normal length, eventually is did grow to a size proportionate to the rest of his body.
The subsequent years have held a lot of good times, and some very bad ones. The 9/11 attacks, being laid off from my job a month afterwards, family deaths and other crises. No matter what happened, I knew that when I got home the little Pika would be there waiting to make me feel better. At one point when he was a few years old he was on a table when I leaned down to pet him. Without warning he jumped up on my back and lay down on my shoulders, with his head resting on my left shoulder and his rear on my right. This became a favorite thing for him to do when I came home from work, always in the same position with his head over my left shoulder. Sometimes he would jump up there with no warning, like when I was looking for something in the refrigerator or the pantry. Sure I had a lot of scratched on my back and shoulders from where he grabbed on to me, but it was worth it. He would ride around on my shoulders as I went about my business around the house.
Pika would often chase his tail at different times. After a bit we began to realize that shortly after the tail chasing sessions it would rain. My best guess is that the changing air pressure and/or humidity caused some type of irritation at the tip of his tail which caused him to chase it around, but we liked to think that he was actively causing the rain by chasing his tail. I know, stupid cat owners!
The years have gone by uneventfully, with both cats being happy and mostly healthy. Our animals received regular veterinary care and we always took them for additional check ups whenever something seemed wrong. Now comes the reason why I decided to write this blog. Pika is sick...very sick.
Back in January we noticed that Pika was squinting his left eye. We assumed that he just had something in there of that he and Boo had sparred a little with each other and she had gotten a good swipe in. When the eye hadn't resolved itself after a few weeks we took him to the vet (which is someplace he does NOT like to go!). She found that he had an ear infection, cleaned it out and gave us some medication to use at home to get him back to normal. After a few weeks the ear infection was gone, but the squint remained so we took him back. This time we were prescribed some antibiotic/steroid eye drops to try for a week. When this still did not resolve our vet suggested we take him to an animal ophthalmologist (yes they DO exist). We made the appointment and took him to the clinic in mid March. The doctor examined Pika and told us that it looked like he had Horner's syndrome due to the ear infection. This is an inflamation of the cranial nerve feeding the eye. All of the classic signs were there, a somewhat rigid eyelid and a smaller than normal pupil size. This was good news! Horner's syndrome generally resolves itself after about six months. We went about our business for the next few months, things were very busy at work so I wasn't able to pay that much attention to the cats. We traveled out of town for Jenny's college graduation, then I had a major accreditation inspection at work I had to get ready for. The inspection went extremely well, everyone was happy, then the bottom fell out.
On June 1st I woke up as usual and started getting ready for work. Pika was laying at the foot of the bed, so I went over to give him a few pets. When I saw his eye I knew something was very wrong, it was cloudy and covered with a thick mucous. Pika had lost the ability to close his left eye, which had become irritated and started producing extra mucous to try and compensate. Once the eye clinic was open we called and were able to get an appointment for later that afternoon. Another doctor saw Pika, and the diagnosis was very different. Pika is suffering from Feline Restrictive Orbital Myofibroblastic Sarcoma, a.k.a. Feline orbital pseudotumor. I'm still in the process of finding out all I can about this disease, and that is the true purpose of this blog. The disease isn't cancer, it causes the formation of scar tissue which results in the other tissues to become firm and lose their elasticity. It is also progressive, moving along the facial planes to the other eye and the mouth. At the time of the second exam, the left side of Pika's mouth was also showing signs of the disease. currently there are no treatments that seem to be effective and the mean survival time after symptoms manifest, even with intensive treatment, is about 9 months and we first saw the squinting five months ago. One of the doctors at the clinic has treated this rare condition before, we are waiting to hear from him to see what our next move will be. For now we're treating the affected eye with ophthalmic antibiotic ointment, artificial tears gel and flushing with saline as needed.
So that is the reason for this blog, not only to allow me to write about an animals who has grown to mean a great deal to me personally, but to document our struggle with this disease. As I do my research on this disease I plan to post links to those sources here. Anything we try to treat this condition will be described here. No matter what the outcome, I hope this information will be of some use to someone who may have to deal with it in the future. I don't know how much time we have left with Pika, maybe weeks, maybe months, maybe more. For the time that we do have, I intend to make sure he is comfortable, happy and as pain free as possible. If or when the day comes that his condition robs him of a comfortable existance we will have to make the painful decision to release him. This will be a very difficult day for me, but the last thing I ever want is for Pika, aka Peanut, aka The Nutty Buddy to live in pain.
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