An email from my sister. A link to a Craigslist ad. Someone looking for a home for a young cat with Cerebellar Hypoplasia. A link within said ad to the lovely YouTube video about CH cats, This is Charley, which I was quite familiar with, having had a CH cat already for 14 years. I bit, called, and drove 2 hours round trip to pick her up. We named her Nora, for her sweet snub nose that reminded me of Nora Charles in the Thin Man films (Myrna Loy). She was polydactyl with enormous thumbs on her mitten-like paws. We added Dolly Rocker to her aliases, but eventually landed on calling her Kee, short for Kee-Kee, because it was calling to her in a high pitched baby voice "Kee-Kee!" that riled her up and got her attention. She had the CH a tad worse than our older CH cat, but got around fine. And the other 4 cats adored her. As we did.....
Kee got along famously with our elder CH cat, Buhaki (aka Bucifer, BuRocker, Booza, Osama BuHaki, Bu Manchu, Rock Star, Rocker, Broham, Ham, BuDiggity, etc) , and the other 3 boys (Otto aka Goomba, aka Eugene Gooms, aka Ottsy, aka Otto Potatoe...Willis aka Ellis aka Will, aka Wilford Brimstone, and the Great Gatsby Chandler Muriel Bing Crosby, aka Gatsbah, aka Gibby, aka Gibbles, aka Gitabean, aka Flatbed). You know what they say, the more names you have the more you're loved! It was all happy here.
Bu
Willis
Otto
And Gatsby.
Kee was fine, but very quickly stopped using the litter. We tried every possible thing, more boxes, different litter, covered box v. uncovered (a tricky thing with cats that fall over while peeing, so not really an option)....herbal oils in a wall plug-in, and a vet trip to rule out any urinary/physical problems. Which was not the issue. We cleaned like mad and lived in denial.
Then the seizures started.
Almost always at night, and because she had a balance disorder they were violent and lurchy....like 3 feet leaps into furniture lurchy. We would try to throw a blanket or towel over her, to slow the movement and add some cushion. We had to be clear of her mouth to not get bitten. Then they would slow...and she would pant, and drool, and struggle to walk...eventually gaining back her mind and immediately go eat. We took her to the vet. Nothing they could find to cause them. The option was to take her to Iowa State to a neurologist (and mind you, Ia State's Veterinary Hospital is top notch, but not super cheap). But the caveat was that it was likely whatever caused her underdeveloped cerebellum in utero had caused more neurological malformations. So a nightmare for her to go be studied, and money we really didn't have.
They prescribed an anti-anxiety, and we mushed it into her food. We'd put it in her food following a seizure when she was ravenous, and she'd have it....and not have a seizure for a few days. At one point they stopped for 4 months. I thought she'd somehow outgrown it. But they started again, and the litter box issue was worsening.
We kept giving her the meds, but they weren't working anymore. The seizures were beyond horrific....violent, random. I'm pretty sure I waited longer than I should have. I called our vet and asked about the meds and she explained they only stay in the system 4 hours or so, and that they clearly weren't affecting the seizure pattern at all. It was decision time. I held off. I couldn't do it. We couldn't afford a specialist, and we also knew whatever she had was likely not something fixable. But I waited. Wanted to get our 8 y.o. daughter back to school and try dealing with it during a school day....but not her first day.
Yet....on thay first day of school Kee had the worst seizure of all. Daughter at school, her Dad and I sat over Kee convulsing on the floor and we knew. Called the vet (who knew we were considering this option) and explained. She said bring her right in. Bless them, they didn't make us wait. We gathered ourselves, got her into a carrier and took her in.
You don't need the details. You do need to know I agonized. I've had a lot of pets, and put down 2....but older, you know? Kee was just 1 and a 1/2. I'd taken her in thinking I could handle her disability. It was too soon. Too much. Too damn hard. We did what had to be done, with a stellar veterinarian who had our backs on our decision...she even let us sit w/ Kee til we were able to go and didn't ask for payment as they typically require, letting us pay later. They sent flowers, and a card saying we'd given Kee a great life and that 1 1/2 cat years is longer than we realize. Amazing people.
But Kee.
In the title I said this was about why CH cats matter, and you may have gathered enough from the videos of Kee and Charley. But what you don't know is that I've had Buhaki for nearly 15 years, taking him in when he was barely 7 months old. Whiskers chewed nearly clean off by his CH sister, Pearl (aka, Pearly Mayhem). I also have 2 giant normal boy cats who were thought to have CH when I got them, but didn't (Ellis and Otto). And Gatsby, who is nearly disturbingly normal as cats go....annoying, darling, mischievous, dare-devil-ey, boistrous. But what I do know is that a cat with CH is not a cat with a death sentence. The wobble doesn't mean they're broken. If Kee/Nora would want us to take any message about them, it would be that they're not cats to discard. Not cats to give up on. And if Bu is a testament, at 14+ years, they are the best best best cats to invest your love in.