Motley the cat.

Our cat, Motley, is 14 years old. We've had him since he was a kitten and he rules the four-legged animal kingdom in our house with his sharp claws and cool don't-give-a-shit gaze.

The other night, Motley had a seizure. It was a frightening enough experience for Tricky and I can't imagine what it was like for him. It lasted about 30 seconds, then he was panting and disoriented for quite a few minutes after that. He sort of recovered, in the sense that he got up and walked around – albeit a bit unsteadily – but seemed detached from his environment, as though everything was new to him. Of course, we took him to the vet the next day. The news was not great. Motley had high blood pressure, an enlarged hypothalamus and both retinas were partially detached (due to the high blood pressure or maybe the seizure) which explained the sense that he seemed disoriented Some blood tests also showed he has signs of Feline Infectious Peritonitis which is not a very nice cat disease, with no cure and a poor prognosis. Cats are supposed to deteriorate fairly quickly after it first begins to cause problems. We agreed with the Vet to give him some medication for the high blood pressure, take him home and give him some loving. He seems to have recovered a little, has adapted to the partial loss of his sight and is pretty much acting as though nothing happened. That means eating, sleeping, meow because you're hungry, more sleeping, scratch claws on the scratching pole, sit (or sleep) in front of the back door so that the two dogs won't dare come in or out, sleep some more, eat some more, sleep. Tricky has nicknamed Motley 'Mary Ingalls' after the character in that '70s (!) TV show 'Little House on the Prairie' who was blinded by scarlet fever (as an aside, I discovered today that Mary Ingalls and all of the other Ingalls were real people!) We have to take Motley to see the vet again in a couple of weeks.

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