Sunday evening, we noticed that our Callie, who is six-seven years old, was favoring her right rear leg. Then yesterday morning, she would hardly put any weight on it at all, so I called her vet and got an appointment for 4:15 yesterday. The vet manipulated her leg without it seeming to cause great pain, so the vet decided it wasn't broken; and her hips didn't seem out of joint, either. So the vet proposed taking x-rays, to which I agreed, to rule out any cracked bones. Turns out Callie has severe arthritis in her right "knee" (just like her mama!
). We were given two prednisone pills, one for yesterday and one for today, then we are to give her a baby aspirin every three days. MrPurrl fashioned some "stairs" up to the bed out of a small chest of drawers and some boxes, until we can do better. Callie is a smart girl. By bedtime last night, she was moving much better and knew exactly what to do with those stairs. She went down them when we got up this morning.
Her appetite is good, and she was giving her "brother" Fergus "what-for" when he was following her around last night. The vet asked if we'd had her since she was a kitten; no--we got her from the Humane Society four years ago. It's probably that she'd gotten some kind of injury when she was stray before being picked up, such as being bumped by a car or even being beaten. We do think she'd been abused somehow in the past. But any injury back then could have been developing arthritis, and she may have hurt it jumping off the bed or being rolled by Fergus over the weekend.
I hope she will continue to improve. I double-dog love that "little living creature."