I just wanted to share this email that I received from Joene. She also had a lovely blind cat. I enjoyed her story so much that I wanted to pass it along to all of you as well.

Hi,
I just wanted to thank you for sharing your experiences with Tulip and for keeping everyone informed on how she is doing. She reminds me a lot of a little cat that I had who was blind. Her name was Sammie and I was lucky enough to have her for 11 years. I found her in my father’s barn in the middle of a winter storm. She was the only kitten and I knew she would not survive the night if I didn’t bring her indoors. Needless to say, she was pretty ill and in order to save her life, I had to make the decision to remove her eyes. The first couple of weeks, I wasn’t sure I did the right thing. She’d crawl up on the bed and not be able to get down. She’d walk into walls and fall down the stairs and each time was so traumatic. My other 2 cats would not have anything to do with her but hiss and growl and she was so tiny and scared.
Then one day, she started playing with a little plastic ball. The ball would hit the wall and that was how she discovered the perimeters of the room. A few weeks later, we taught her how to navigate the stairs. Within a short period of time, she was zooming everywhere and keeping everyone in the house awake at night because all she wanted to do was play, play and play. I could not wait to get home from work to see what else she had learned that day. It was the first time in my life I had an understanding of what new parents go through when their baby learns to talk, crawl and then walk, When I eventually moved into the new house I was building, she was the only one of my 3 cats who wanted to explore every nook and cranny.
I learned a lot from Sammie over the years as I am sure your are learning from Tulip. Sammie didn’t know she was disabled…she thought everyone and everything “saw” what she “saw”. There were several times I’d have her out in the garden and she would try to sneak up on a squirrel, chipmunk or bird. While she was “plainly visible” to everyone including them, she didn’t know it. She never gave up trying and one day I witnessed her catching a little mouse.
I lost Sammie a few days before Valentine’s day. She came down with an upper respiratory infection last summer and it would not go away no matter what antibiotic we tried. Althought it’s been over 6 months, I still miss her. That was why I loved your site. It reminded so much about her. I wished I would have documented all I went through with her and made videos of her. Watching your Tulip helps bring some of those memories back.
If there was any advice I could give, it would be to play with Tulip and try to keep her learning new things. I found that Sammie liked to be challenged. She really liked new experiences. I did let her outdoors only when I was out with her and watching her every move. I adopted a couple of kittens as playmates when one of my older cats passed on. They became the perfect companions to her as both would lay down and become submissive when she would hiss or growl at them. Although I could not tell them apart, she could from their smell. One of them became her best friend, the other one she tolerated.
Good luck to both of you…Would love to hear from you.
Joene

Joene, thanks for sharing your story with us!