Early this morning, about twelve hours ago, I awoke from a deep sleep to find -- well, I'm not sure at what point exactly I woke up because I was a little foggy in the beginning. And let me say also that everything's fine for now.
At some point, I noticed that Juliet (the cat) was writhing around on the floor, well, not exactly writhing, but kind of half-curled up, furiously kicking her back legs, and huffing -- ff-ff-ff-ff-snort-ff-ff. I later realized the bed was wet, and so was she, so she must have fallen off the bed at some point, or half fell, half jumped. I tried to pet her and calm her, and she'd just straighten out for a while and go back to the curled-up paddling.
So I picked her up and held her, and eventually, she calmed down. In fact, she got so calm that I thought she might have died in my arms. I put her down (bad Liz, on the cold tile floor, but gently), and went to get Robert, who turned on the light. We realized she was moving her head ever so slightly. I got a towel and we laid her on that. And after a while, she managed to turn around 180 degrees to face us. We petted her and sat with her. Eventually, she raised herself up, and kind of stumbled around, and eventually her back legs started working.
And then, she wanted three things in this order: petting -- she was very demanding and purred very loudly every time we touched her; food -- she was starving and ate a large amount and kept it down; and sleep -- she and I curled up on the bed and she fell into a deep sleep.
But between food and sleep, I called the emergency room (yes, they have e-rooms for pets) and they said that as long as she was "better," I should just take her to the vet. Oh, and a quick perusal of advice off the internet yielded this gem -- your cat won't swallow its tongue, so don't stick your fingers in its mouth while its in some kind of neurological state (I can just imagine all the well-meaning but clueless pet owners who end up in the human e-room after getting a severe cat bite under these circumstances.)
And the vet was wonderful, as was the vet tech. The vet turns out to be an animal accupuncturist and chiropracter as well as a trained medical vet. He said that she'd had a grand-mal seizure, which could be, but isn't necessarily, related to epilepsy. He also showed me some pressure points that might help if this happens again. And he gave me some good advice for next time -- stay with her, comfort her, call the vet when they're open to report it, and take her to the e-room if she doesn't stop after five minutes. He was very calming for both of us.
He also said that the options range from "watchful waiting" to pheneobarbitol (presumably in small doses) to an MRI. I think that we're going to err on the do-nothing side for at least a while and develop some strategies if it happens again.
May the rest of the weekend be filled with no more surprises of any kind. And may we all recover from this latest adventure.
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