In the meantime, the foster mom contacted the vet and got an appointment bright and early that Monday morning. Eriel arrived at the foster home and weighed in at a mighty 4.5 pounds! The poor little girl was scared and dirty, with her tongue sticking out and her right eye almost closed. She was squinting with her left eye, wheezing, and limping, and clearly not feeling her best. She just wanted to huddle in a corner. The foster parents had set up a soft cat bed with a heating pad under it, and Eriel settled in. She had a pretty quiet Sunday, but she was still not eating. She went to the vet the next day, and spent the next week and a half there getting much needed medical care and love. She was given subcutaneous fluids because she was dehydrated and antibiotics because she had an upper respiratory infection. Symblepharon is a partial or complete adhesion of the palpebral conjunctiva of the eyelid to the bulbar conjunctiva of the eyeball meaning that Eriel’s eyelids were stuck to her eyeball; she had symblepharon surgery to excise the fibrous adhesions between the conjunctiva and the cornea. The doctor also sewed contacts on her eyes so that they could heal without sustaining further damage. She also had a “mucky” mouth, so two teeth were pulled and the rest were cleaned.  The following week she was spayed and received her rabies and distemper vaccinations. Two days later she was allowed to return to her foster home. She had always been a little trooper about taking her medications, and her foster parents worked on litterbox habits. It didn’t take her long to master that.

Eriel had muscle wasting in her back legs from being housed in a cage for the first year of her life, but it is hoped that she will build those muscles back up over time. However, her foster parents noticed that she was limping a lot, and she could get up the cat tree but couldn’t get back down. It wasn’t that she couldn’t figure it out. She just couldn’t find her footing, and she usually fell if she wasn’t helped down. Both issues were addressed at her one-week postoperative vet appointment. Even though Eriel is only a year old, x-rays showed that she has the beginnings of arthritis in her spine. She has right hip luxation (dislocation), so her hip goes out of alignment when she walks. Her eyes were badly scarred before surgery, with her right eye being worse than her left, so in all likelihood she sees only light and shadows with that eye. And she can’t make it down cat trees because her depth perception is out of whack. Because of her itty bitty nose, she had a second upper respiratory infection. (Her nose is so small that surgery isn’t even an option.) She was again put on antibiotics and was given Onsior for pain and inflammation. By the second day of being on Onsior, she was running around like the young cat she is! She can’t stay on Onsior long-term because it is too tough on her system, so she will likely have to get Adequan injections for life.