Blind

Tucker has lost sight in his left eye. The sight in his right eye never came back, so he is now completely blind.

I feel bad for him. It came on very suddenly late last week, when I noticed that his left eye had hemorrhaged just as his right eye had a couple of months ago. He was also sort of aimlessly wandering around the living room, not running away from me as he normally would. I scooped him up and snorfled him, and took him back up to the bathroom. He's been in there, sitting on the windowsill.

He's figured out how to hop down onto the floor, and how to get to the food dish, his cat bed, and the catbox. He is slowly learning how to find his way back up to the windowsill... he often walks past the window, and then, hearing that the wall sounds different than the window, comes back, then reaches out and pads around for the radiator. When he finds it, he knows how far to hop up to make it to the windowsill.

Tuckermoose. We didn't even take him to the vet... there wasn't anything the previous set of visits did to help him regain his sight, and there's no indication that putting him through that would help. His blood pressure had been slightly high, and that's probably what caused this hemorrhage in his eye, and there's nothing much to be done about it. He's only eleven and a half, and he's the only blind cat we've ever had.

I have as much to learn as he does. I have to figure out how to lay out the room so he can get around. Figure out how to put clues in the house so he knows where he is and how to move around. Have to realize that he can't see me any more, and so maybe he'll be generally more approachable. And have to realize that he can't see me to get out of my way, so I have to walk around him, rather than assume he'll move.

He's a pretty good kitten. I am sorry this has come upon him. I can't help but project on myself what I'd be going through if I lost my sight suddenly, one eye at a time.

If Tucker makes a good blind cat, I think I'd make an OK blind guy. I just wish he didn't have to go first.