A few weeks ago, I was asleep in the family room, and I heard something that sounded like a sack of potatoes sliding down a Plinko board. Since the sound woke me up in the middle of the night, I wasn’t sure quite what I’d heard, but I was sure I needed to use the bathroom. On the way back, I noticed my cat (Hailey) lying at the bottom of her cat tower. She was alert, but she didn’t look like herself.
Cats have this amazing ability to right themselves when they fall, but they need time to pull it off. Apparently, the amount of time between tumbling off the cat tower and hitting the ground is not sufficient.
I have hip issues that prevent me from bending to the ground, and she sure wasn’t getting up to come by me, so I grabbed my husband (Walt). That’s when we found out that the cat couldn’t walk. When Hailey tried to stand, her left side would give out and she’d fall over. This didn’t stop her from trying, of course, so after chasing a surprisingly quick cat for a few moments, we scooped her up and Walt headed for the emergency vet.
Several hundred dollars and many tests later, she seems to be better. She’s still having a bit of trouble climbing and jumping, but nobody knows what happened and they’re attributing her current troubles to age.
That’s where the condo complex comes in. Her cat tower used to be about seven feet tall, but worried cat parents that we are, we took off a layer. This caused the cat to hate the whole thing, so we tried to replace it with a smaller one in case the old one was freaking her out because she fell. She did not like the new one. She did not like the old one. What she likes is the old one right next to the new one so she can frolic between them.
We may never know quite what happened to her, but at least we have a new, snazzy setup.
Thinking While Typing 