Mao

other_resources.md

Expenses tracking:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1D2kaqX4ysxS_exw4VmpBY116FumSxRL8NrJCzz14_3U/edit?usp=sharing

status.md

Neurological

Mao seems to have a constant sense of false movement (vertigo). It doesn't help that he is blind. He perceives that he is rotating clockwise (seen from the top). So he compensates by going left when walking. His head scans from right to left when he sits upright. His eye exhibits nystagmus. It does not show signs of improving since his accident.

He has trouble with spatial orientation and seems to be lost most of the time.

He does not seem able to feel or control his right cheek (inc. right whiskers) or to grab hard food with his jaw.

Vision

He has one destroyed eye (not visible at all), another eye which is seriously injured. The Iris is partly extruded or displaced. He does not respond to visual stimuli. The iris reponds to light by contracing.

Feeding / breathing

His breathing is normal and slow. His purr is inaudible. There is a hole in the hard palate that is closing veeeeery slowly. He can breathe from his nose to some extent.

He has appetite as he is aroused by the smell of food and tries to find it.

He cannot eat hard foods. He buries his nose in a pot of kibbles and tries but instead of chewing and swallowing he spits it out.

He can lick water, liquid or semi-liquid food however it will cause him to get liquid in his nostrils and eventually down his throat and he will gag and cough.

At the moment I feed him soft pate food by putting a syringe in the back of his mouth, beyond the hole in his palate, and gently emptying the contents.

His mouth does not close completely, he has malocclusion.

I would find dried food in his mouth, on the forward of his palate and tongue (dried and dard) in his cheek (with a creamish consistency) when tube feeding him (which should bypass his mouth). In the first weeks after his accident it was much worse, he would drool dark matter containing food and possibly blood, it was an mess.

When cleaning the feeding tube bandage I notice that some food was caked on the tube entry site, not sure why.

Hearing

He seems to be able to hear and responds to auditory stimuly and can walk towards a sound.

Digestion

No issues with digestion. He had big worms and was de-wormed. He produces hard-ish stools. He pees big quantities. He often pees and shits outside of the litter.

At the moment 3.3 KG. He is a big cat, his weight should be above 4 KG. Normally he would get about 150-250 ml of liquid food every day.

Character / behavior

Affectionate. He doesn't move much. Docile but somewhat resistant. He likes to sleep in the sun or on my lap. Heavy sleeper. Can learn.

History

I found him in the middle of an asphalt road on a very hot day. He was shot with a bb-gun at least one (one embedded bb pellet on the x-ray), shot with a shotgun at close range in the right side of his face. These two injuries happened in short sequence because what looked the puncture wound of the bb-gun shot was still open and unhealed. I estimate it happened one or two days before I found him. It looks like the tip of his ears were burnt. He may have had his head stepped on as well.