Mimi gets sick.

This post is dedicated to our sweet and sassy Mimi, whose health issues have been an unexpected battle over the last year.

Way back in October, Mimi randomly got reeeeally sick (like, wouldn't move, eat, or open her eyes kind of sick).  When we took her to the vet, they found that her red blood cell count was extremely low.  They pretty quickly ruled out any major diseases, but they still couldn't figure out what was causing her body to destroy her own blood cells.

To make a very long story short,  Mimi was in and out of the vet regularly until about February.  The full course of her treatment included a long term steroid prescription, two different rounds of antibiotics, and a blood draw every two weeks for about five months!  By February, her blood cell count finally started to stabilize.  

This was all such wonderful news, and I only wish it was the end of her problems.  But, no such luck.  Somewhere in the midst of all of this, she developed an extremely bad habit of biting out her own fur. Whether it was a reaction to the steroids or the stress of bi-weekly vet visits, nobody really knows.  It got so bad that she was actually bald on an entire section of her belly, and up along the sides of both legs!

When we took her back into the vet to find out why she was doing this, the vet very seriously diagnosed her with an Anxiety Disorder.  Anxiety Disorder?!  Cats have mental health issues?  The vet started off by suggesting the typical post-surgery cone solution, but then continued on to suggest that we try either kitty Prozac, or a professional cat behavioralist.  I almost laughed in the room, but contained myself long enough to call Don.

Yep.  Our cat is legitimately, medically diagnosed crazy.

So again, to make a long story shorter...After immediately laughing the cat behavioralist idea off the list, we went through the whole gamut of suggestions to avoid trying Prozac.  Nothing worked.  The cone was a fail, the Suitical was a fail (except for the cutest photos and videos ever!!!), and the "composure" treats were an epic fail.  It wasn't until she ripped through the pack unsupervised and ate the entire bag of them that they had any effect at all.

The instructions on the bag should read:  One, two, or even three treats will have zero effect on a cat such as yours.  Kitty will not feel calm until she has eaten at least 15 treats.  Only then will you finally see a change in her behavior.  Kitty will suddenly act extremely groggy.  Eyelids will droop, meows will become slurred, and kitty will not be able to walk straight for several hours.  Hyper and erratic behavior will be curbed for this short period of time.  Side effects may include a lot of vomiting.

{The Cone}

{The Suitical}

After so many incidents of negative experiences with all of these options, we finally decided to give Prozac a try.  She's now been on the medication for about 3 weeks, and she is doing so well!  It hasn't seemed to affect her personality, but she has indeed stopped biting her fur out!  It's finally starting to grow back, and I think we might be in the clear.

We love this little nugget SO much.  And even though she's a handful, we wouldn't trade her spunk for anything.  The only question now is how long to keep crazy cat on the meds?  Ugh...you tell me.