Mable has been released back into the wild, and been roaming the house now for over a week. She is completely back to normal. She will, occasionally, have a bit of a limp -- but it's disappearing more by the day. Daisy hasn't had to give her pain meds for a few days now and she is back to playing lightly with the boys, eating/drinking/using the pan normally, and her old habits of waking Daisy at 6am and wanting to be in my office with me for "dad time" have returned. Aside from where she was shaved, you likely wouldn't know anything had happened to her.
This is a remarkable recovery for a cat who had a broken hip a month ago and a surgery to repair it a few weeks ago.
But, of course, can't have anything good without something else going wrong, so Hank has eye herpes.
I'm not kidding when I say that, by the way.
About two weeks ago, I was starting work one night when I noticed that it looked like Hank had something in his eye. Note, stuff like this isn't unusual -- we have six cats and there's always something mildly concerning going on with one or more of them, despite how well we take care of them -- so I took a quick look, couldn't really see that well, but I thought it was either a piece of debris from the scratch pads or one of the other cats had taken a swipe at him and had gotten his eye. I asked Daisy when she came downstairs to bring the bottle of eye wash we'd gotten for Mable when she got litter stuck in her eye when she was high as a kite and rolling around in the pan, and to see if she could flush whatever it was out or at least get a better look. I didn't have time to go find it or catch Hank again or put a flashlight in his eye or what have you, I had to work. And he seemed fine.
Daisy came downstairs, got a good look at Hank, and was immediately flooded with stress. He had a large ulcer on his eye, right in front of the pupil. It looked angry, but it didn't seem to affect him or affect his vision or activity levels. Daisy thought it could be the type of ulcer that would make him lose an eye and would require surgery. I figured it was just a scratch and would heal in a few days -- our cats have had eye scratches before and they've all been fine in a few days. Still, it looked bad enough that Daisy wanted to get Hank in to the vet the next morning, and I agreed.
The vet had no open appointments for the rest of the week, but they told Daisy she could bring him in and drop him off, and they'd look at him between appointments and she could pick him up when they called, so very early the next morning she jumped out of bed and drove the orange lad to the vet while I slept. She said he wailed and screamed the entire time (Hank does not like change, does not like the vet, and does not like the car -- at all. He is an orange house loaf.) Then they called her, said it was eye herpes, and that she could come get him. Per Daisy he also screamed the entire way home, and it's very likely (knowing this cat) that he screamed the entire time he was at the vet's office, because he is who he is.
Anyway. Eye herpes. Basically it looks like the same pus-filled blisters you'd get on your lip or face but on the cat's eyeball. Most cats are either strongly resistant to it or basically immune to it, as almost all cats are exposed to it as kittens (especially strays and shelter cats, and Hank was both). Well, apparently Hank is not immune to it. Like human herpes, it can come out in outbreaks during times of stress -- and Hank has certainly been stressed this month, what with Mable being injured and going in and out of the cage, her wailing, etc. Hank does not like change.
The vets said that it's not contagious -- this is a lie, actually -- it is highly contagious, but given the fact that Hank has shared the house with all of the other cats his whole life, it's likely they're not susceptible to it (or they have a strong immune resistance to it at this point). We think Maggie might have had it back when she was alive; she did not get the blisters, but at times she did have a reddened weepy eye that would last a few days and go away -- probably 3-4x a year. Charlie also has really bad allergies, and the vets say it can manifest as that too. So, eh, who knows. None of the other cats seem to be affected.
As for Hank himself, he now gets two different types of eyedrops six times per day, and eats an L-Lysine based paste off a spoon at least once a day to help build his immune response back up. He seems fine. He hates getting the eyedrops, but he does tolerate it well, and they do seem to help him, slowly. The L-Lysine paste is maple flavored (I found that weird, but okay) and he also seems to like that just fine. Vets say it can be a few weeks before it clears up -- like, it's not going to be an overnight fix.
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