Zebbie Unwell.

Zebbie very unwell.

Alice Springs.

Sunday, 22nd January, 2012

Last weekend, our long time travelling companion, Zebbie the cat, started looking very unwell. It came on quite quickly with her showing no interest in her food, and finding it very hard to walk. She is twelve years old, but had been in great health - apart from being a little too chubby.

We could not decide what was wrong with her, so Monday, Lyn, with assistance from the people we are staying with, took her to the vet. $545 later and they did not really have any suggestions either. Her X rays were clear. Blood test was pretty good, and after a day's observation they offered a long-lasting injection of antibiotics in case she did have some sort of infection.

When she was back home, with so many possibilities now ruled out, we just watched her actions and thought - stroke?

An internet search showed that she did indeed have most of the signs of stroke. Even the 2 blood test results that were not 100% were tied to a possible stroke.

Zebbie resting by the litter tray.

Over the week she slowly started to recover. The internet sites suggested that cats recover quite well from stroke - usually getting back to nearly normal within two weeks. She is still seeking out quiet corners to hide and rest, but slowly starting to get back to a little of her normal activities. It's been made more difficult by the weather being so hot - most days over 41C. - with none of us wanting to do too much.

She still has not regained the knowledge of how to back out of places, so we have had to come to her rescue a couple of times to lift her out of tight corners, including a midnight rescue bought on by her cries when she got stuck behind the computer stand.

Considering her age, we are not expecting her to return completely to her old self, but we keep hoping she will regain a good degree of health and agility.

Update - Saturday, 28th January, 2012

As well as having Zebbie sick, our wireless internet modem also failed, leaving us without our "home" phone and all internet access. Telstra in Alice Springs could not sell us a new modem, so we had to wait a week for it to come from "somewhere". We ended up getting an Amaysim card for one of our older phones. It gives unlimited mobile and phone calls for $40 per month. That solved our immediate phone problem.

Zebbie seemed to be getting better - a little each day, then in the middle of the week she relapsed very badly. We thought we would loose her several times, but she seemed to pull through. She is still very bad, and realisticly we are not expecting her to come out of this now, but only time will tell.