So, my fear of finding her dead the next morning didn’t prove to be reality.  Athena has been healing quite nicely.  She’s not back to herself, but I don’t really know if she ever will be.

Everyday, her eye looks slightly better, and she can close it slightly more.  It’s a very sad sight to see her sleeping, as her damaged eye cannot close, and is constantly open.  The vet yesterday, at her follow-up exam, suggested we begin bathing her eye in artificial tear drops.  Oh yeah.  She really love it when I put those in her eye.  But, it does seem to be helping, so I persist.

This photo was taken yesterday:

And this one I took just 10 minutes ago:

Much improved, yes?  She’s not happy at all about not being able to go outside.  But, even if I do end up letting her go outside occasionally, I am not doing any such thing at least until her leg is all healed.

We’ve had Athena for 8 years now.  She was the first cat that Walter and I got together, back when we lived in Colorado.  She’s been through many, many moves with us in three states.  She is very delicate and graceful, and quiet, and sweet.  Not many people have the pleasure of spending time with her, as she was originally a feral cat that was caught when she was a kitten.  We adopted her from the humane society, knowing that most people wouldn’t adopt her because of her skittishness. She’s still scared of people she doesn’t intimately know.  But, for our family, she is the sweetest cat.

Today, I found her hiding in our linen closet.  She normally likes to nap in there, but today, I could tell, even in the shadow, that something was wrong.  She had been hurt.  We managed to get her in the cat carrier, and took her to the vet.  I wasn’t totally sure if she’d been in a fight, or been hit.  The vet could tell easily it had been a car.

She didn’t appear to have any bleeding except for the area around her right eye and on her nose a bit.  Her eye had been bleeding internally, and was quite swollen with blood.  They kept her for a few hours, gave her an IV with medications, and sutured up a small cut on her right hind leg.

We aren’t sure if her eye will heal.  She may end up losing sight in the eye, or may even have to have it removed.  Either way, I am so grateful that the damage wasn’t more severe.

She’s still not in the clear, as far as I am concerned.  The vet seemed to feel like she is in great shape.  But, I’m still terrified that I will wake up tomorrow to find her dead.

Here’s a picture of her tonight.

Right now, I’m learning all I can about how to transition outside cats to an indoor-only lifestyle.  I just don’t think I could handle this happening again, especially considering how much worse the damage could have been.