Eye eye Jamie!

[Chalmers_Cats]

Most of the regulars will recognise Jamie. He is a very special rescue cat. He came into care at just a few months old with brain damaged. He is very wobbly on his feet and can quite co-ordinate his brain and feet. The vet was unsure what caused the brain damage or if it will ever go away. He is now about 7 years old and he still has the brain damage but is the happiest cat you’d ever meet. He gets around like all the other ‘normal’ cats and we hardly notice it now.

Well, just about 3 days before Christmas, we noticed he had a sore eye. It didn’t get much better after Christmas. We had a look at it and it looked as if another cat had clawed him and it had caused an ulcer. It was pretty sore looking so we took him to the vet where he was given eye drops. These seemed to have little effect so the vet suggested we get his third eye lid sown over to help the healing process. We always worry about the anaesthetic with his brain damage, as we don’t know how it affects him, but we went ahead with it any way and he was fine. He had to keep it sown over for 3 weeks.

The eye looks a lot worse than it really is!


It takes a lot to stop Jamie getting about, as you can see he was playing as normal.



3 weeks later he went back to the vet and got the stitches out and he is now absolutely fine. The ulcer has completely gone.

Lisa

[Catnip]

Lisa,

I love all the photos of Jamie - he is gorgeous! And he has two things in common with our Jacob, it seems. The first is his apparent love of those superb tickling sticks with the feathers on - Jake can demolish one in about 5 minutes - and I get to clear up all the feathers! And the second thing is his bad eye. Just before Xmas 2001 Rosco inadvertently caught Jake in the eye with his claw while they were playing, which resulted in a badly ulcerated eye. We tried every kind of eye ointment and drops, all to no avail. Then the vet suggested sewing Jake's third eyelid across, just like Jamie, which was done, only to find that on removing the stitches the eye was no better. More eye drops, and his eye looked worse than ever. I got fed up with pinning Jake down and subjecting him to all this 'torture' and gave up on the eye drops. Within a week, his eye was looking better and soon after it was almost as good as new. To see it now, you wouldn't notice anything wrong, but if you look VERY closely the blue iris is a slightly different colour from his other eye and in the middle of the pupil there is a very tiny mark left, but it certainly doesn't affect his eyesight.

The last photo that you posted of Jamie is wonderful, by the way! I'm so glad his eye is much better (another coincidence is that it was on the same side as Jake's!)

Here's a photo of Jake before he had his eye stitched - you can see the damage to his eye.....


And here's a couple after it was stitched - he had to wear the Buster collar to stop him from rubbing at it......



Here's how he looks now.....

[Ann]

I've had the pleasure of meeting Jamie several times and he really is quite a boy. It's impossible not to fall in love with him. I'm so pleased his eye is healing up nicely. All the pictures are good, but I agree with Sue, that last one is wonderful.

Good to hear the update on Jacob too Sue. I know how worried you were when it first happened. I'm glad there was no lasting damage and that he's back to his beautiful blue eyed self.

[Maria]

Lisa - Jamie certainly sounds a very special cat. I'm so pleased that the eye is healed, although the problem doesn't seem to have stopped him enjoying life. The pictures are adorable....and hey, who needs an excuse anyway? I don't think anyone here gets tired of seeing sweet kitty pictures - especially that last one!!

Catnip - Jake is beautiful! I'm glad that he is also fully recovered. He seems to have a patient tolerance to that collar, although I'm sure that if he could talk, he'd tell us exactly what he thinks of it!

Maria

[jen]

Ah bless! Pleased he's OK now I'll talk to the rest of the family when I next see them - it had better have not been Hannah!

[Edda]

Aw, what a sweet cat! Jamie seems to be adapting well in spite of his handicap. It is so great to see cats play. Good to know that the eye surgery worked to clear up his ulcer. He looks great!