Bunny goes blind

I feel some guilt that this post will be so short, but I’ve been having a hard time finding time to sit down to write out all the details of this story, and I want to do it properly.  Long story short, our little Bunny had some sort of an accident on Friday night (we don’t have a clue what happened, though), and she first ended up with a limp, and then she ended up blind.  We were told to expect the worst, including a brain tumor or seizure disorder or even a stroke, and we were upset and feeling very helpless.  When we brought Bunny home on Sunday afternoon she was definitely “blind as the proverbial bat”, but by Monday we thought we saw some evidence of a bit of vision.  We went to the veterinary ophthalmologist on Tuesday, and he said her eyes were in perfect condition, so whatever problem she had was either in the brain, or in the nerves leading to the brain.  He agreed with our observations, though: it seemed that Bunny could see certain things.  With every passing day, her vision seems to be improving, which has been an incredible relief!  I only hope that her problem was caused by a concussion, and not by something more serious… I think we’ll have to wait and see if it happens again if we want to know more, and frankly, I hope it never happens again.  Flippy has posted a lot more details in her blog, and I’ll post more too in the next few days, but go check out what Flippy wrote if you want to share in our weekend horror story.  I think I took about a decade off my life just out of worry these past few days… I can’t imagine losing Bunny when she’s not even two years old yet.

Oh, a bit of trivia about Bunny’s other medical issue:  we were told a year ago that she had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.  It turns out she actually has restrictive cardiomyopathy, which is different, and in many ways worse, but she’s got a very mild case of it compared to other cases I’ve read about.  Average life span after diagnosis is just 3 months, and Bunny has lived 15 months without any change in the condition of her heart (i.e., there’s been no further enlargement).  To all of you who wrote to me about your HCM cats, I thank you, and now I guess I need to hunt down some folks with RC cats to compare notes.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 02/26 at 04:44 AM

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  1. I hope that Bunny recovers her sight fully.

    You and Flippy are truly amazing to take on all of this concern and worry. I can’t tell you how much I admire you.

    Posted by Calamity Jen  on  02/28  at  11:04 AM

  2. Did they check Bunny’s blood pressure?
    http://www.cat-world.com.au/HypertensionInCats.htm

    Posted by Susan  on  02/28  at  10:37 PM

  3. Sorry I’m so slow to reply, Susan.  Yep, the BP was perfectly normal—the staff at the ophthalmologist’s office took it 5 times over the course of our visit, just to make sure.  Our regular vet checked everything possible—extensive blood work to check for hyperthyroidism, toxicology tests, FIV/FeLV and FIP tests (even though Bunny had all her vaccines), Tonopen glaucoma test—they only thing they couldn’t do on-site was an MRI.

    We truly think Bunny had a concussion and it affected her vision for a few days.  Neither of the vets we’ve seen recommends she get an MRI at this point, because they both feel it wouldn’t show anything definitive.  If this happens again, we’ll go to the neurology clinic, but hopefully this was just a one-time freaky/rare occurance.

    Posted by Leigh-Ann  on  03/04  at  12:36 PM
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