A Study in Adjustment

Pebbles, one of our cats, lost her eyesight a few weeks ago, apparently due to high blood pressure. She is our ‘senior’ cat and will be sixteen in August.

The first day she walked into a couple of walls. Our other three cats started acting a bit strangely around her. They knew something was wrong as she constantly violated their personal space, the boundaries of which were apparently fairly visual among our cats.

By the second day, there was less wall banging and she seemed to be honing her other senses to pick up the other cats before she got ‘too’ close to them. They also were more tolerant.

By the third day, she figured out how to negotiate from her favorite chair to her cat box to her food without too much of a problem. Occasionally she missed a doorway by a few inches and couldn’t understand why she couldn’t find her cat box, not realizing she was in the correct corner but the wrong room.

By the end of the first week, Pebbles was venturing outside. Under careful supervision, she began to feel, smell, sense her way around our yard. Slowly she learned to recognize a way back to the door to be let in.

Over the next week, there were times when I wondered if she had suddenly regained her sight for her movements were so graceful. Of course, there were moments of frustration. If picked up and transported back to her chair for one reason or another, she was not above carrying on a discourse in low meows that I could imagine being along the lines of why we had turned all the lights out in the world.

These days Pebbles goes outside and I assume is gradually expanding her comfort level for taking a morning walk. She finds her way around and knows to wait in the garage in her favorite bed if we are not available to open the door for her. There still are occasional moments of frustration but she appears to be making a transition to this obvious disruption to her life.

Pebbles is a constant reminder for me that change happens. And, it is up to us to center, breathe, learn, and explore as we deal with change in our own lives. Hmmm. I wonder if Pebbles knows about centering?

Judy Warner