Feline Stroke Recovery

A cat stroke can come on quickly and you will note that your cat will appear off-balanced, having problems walking and head tilted to the right side. Your cat may walk in circles and seem confused. My FIV cat Sam, age 8 suffered a feline stroke.  

 My veterinarian told me that my cat would come out of the stroke in a few weeks and recover from the side effects.

I am happy to report that I see glimpses of my old friend Sam in the back, his eyes are no longer mismatched; one eye had a dilated pupil the other was normal. Now both eyes are of normal size. 

Every day Sam’s energy is increasing and he is getting stronger. Today he played with his tennis ball, picked up a pen from my desk, and placed it in his kitty condominium, he also played with his feather toy on the stick. During his playtime, he took 3 naps. Sam gets fatigued easily and takes more naps throughout the day.

During the stroke recovery, I noticed that Sam has lost his appetite and he is not drinking water. We had to take him to the veterinarian to get him hydrated with intravenous fluids.  The veterinarian suggested that I had tuna juice in his water to entice Sam to drink more.  I followed my veterinarian's instructions and added 1 tablespoon of Albacore tuna to a 1/2 cup of filtered water.  The naturally flavored water did not interest Sam.

My husband reminded me that one of Sam’s favorite pastimes was drinking out of the fish aquarium. I made up a fresh bowl of fishy water and added a fancy guppy to entice Sam to drink the water. All that accomplished was interesting to Sam briefly, he went to the bowl immediately, stuck his paw in the middle of the water bowl, and tried to grab himself the fresh catch of the day. He did lick the water from his paw but that was not enough fluid to keep him hydrated.