My how time flies...it's hard to believe that over two months have past since our last update!!! So lets see where did I leave off...Oh yes, we had just made the move to our new home. Well Moki adjusted quite well. Orange Boy was here for awhile but had a hard time adjusting since at the time I was housing my Aunt and Uncle's cat as well, and could only allow the cats to roam around the house at seperate times. Since Orange Boy was having a hard time adjusting, his Dad and I discussed things and Orange Boy went back to stay with his Dad for awhile, (until the work was completed on my aunt Aunt and Uncle's house and they could pick up their cat.) In the meantime, Orange Boy got sick, and since his vet was in Morgan Hill his stay with his Dad was prolonged. The work on my Aunt and Uncles house was also prolonged, and their cat remains here as a result. So at the moment Orange Boy is still living with his Dad. Mini Munch and Little Kitty did eventually come to live with me and the two of them adjusted quite well, even with the having to take turns sharing the house with my Aunt and Uncles cat. (To clarify things, my Aunt and Uncle's cat is never allowed out with Mini Munch, Little Kitty and Moki, which means that they have to take turns being locked in a bed room and having full roam of the rest of the house. In other words, when Mini Munch, Little Kitty and Moki are out and about, then Sam my Aunt and Uncle's cat has to remain locked up in his bedroom and visa-versa.) With that said, everyone has been doing quite well...Moki has been eating like a horse, and has shown no signs of illness in the past two months. He is still having problems walking, but is eager to get around and explore. I have discovered recently that when Moki has bouts where he refuses to drink anything, I can trick him into drinking on his own again by offering him cat milk. If I give him just a little each morning and each evening then he seems to drink the milk without a problem and has a stronger desire to drink water on his own as well. If I don't offer him up any cat milk then Moki refuses to drink altogether. Cat milk definately seems to be the magic trick here when it comes to keeping Moki drinking on his own. Now that I have figured out the trick with the cat milk, Moki is drinking more water on his own then he ever has in the past, (well at least since he got sick...) so needless to say, things are going good. Of course, I still need to give him fluids from time to time, and have another thoracic inlet (chest) x-ray taken, in addition to having to continue to work on his walking problems, but other than the continual problems we have always faced, I am happy to report nothing new is surfacing. YAH!

As for the pictures, they where just taken this past Saturday. Moki's Dad hadn't seen him for awhile so he asked if he could come and pick up Moki for a visit. The pictures where taken just after Moki had finished eating, and just before his Dad picked him up. Moki will be staying with his Dad until Wednesday, when I will pick both Orange Boy and him up. Now that Mini Munch his here, I am hoping that Orange Boy will adjust a little better this time around, so I am going to give it another shot. If it turns out that he is still unhappy, (with Sam being here and not being able to roam around the house at free-will, then he will go back and stay with his Dad awhile longer until Sam is finally gone.) With that said, lets all keep our fingers crossed that things work out with Orange Boy and he is happy here, reunited with everyone!

On a different note, Christmas is approaching fastly...with my schedule I really have to plan things in advance...so this year I am trying to get a Christmas card list together early. If you would like to be included on Moki's Christmas card list, just send me an email (questions at save moki dot com) with your address. For those of you who would like to send Moki a Christmas card, just email me and I will respond with our new address. Ok well thats all for now...We miss you all...and hope to visit with everyone again real soon (Momma bean has pretty much the whole month of Dec off to get all caught up YAY!)

xoxo,

Moki and Family

Sorry We've Been Away For So Long...

So much has happened...were do I begin? Well let's see...momma bean took her last final for the quarter today. She now has until the 6th to turn in two remaining papers and one power point presentation before she offically begins her break between quarters and she can't wait! It will be the first time she has had a break inbetween quarters in 9 months! She will be off from the 7th thru the 22nd, and is looking forward to spending a little time catching up with all of you!

On a different note, momma bean and daddy bean have offically seperated and momma bean has moved to Discovery Bay. Despite the seperation I am glad to say that momma bean and daddy bean continue to remain friends. At the moment, Moki is currently residing with momma bean and daddy bean has visitation rights. (Moki goes and stays with daddy bean for 3-4 days every couple of weeks.) As for Orange Boy, Mini Munch and Little Kitty, they are all currently residing with daddy bean on a temporary basis. Once momma bean finishes taking care of some things around the new place, in a couple of weeks, everyone will be residing here with momma bean and daddy bean will open up his doors to a whole new set of rescue kitties when he is ready...

Now in regards to Moki. I know many of you have been wondering how he is doing, and the answer to that question is...Moki is doing awesome! He has adjusted to the new house very well, and loves the additional room he has to walk around. He is missing Orange Boy lots, but momma bean takes him over to daddy beans house as often as she can so he can visit and soon Orange Boy will be living here so that wont be a problem. Moki had been battling an unwillingness to drink anything for quite some time, but recently that changed and he has begun gulping down cat milk left and right. Other than the recent drinking issue, which Moki appears to be getting over, he seems to be doing better than ever at the moment. He has a stong desire to eat and eats alot. He also continues to remain very playful and loves to explore the new house. I'll post a more detailed updated in a few days once I've had a chance to rest a little. In the meantime I wanted to let everyone know that Moki is doing fine.

Well it's getting late so I should get going but before I do, I will upload a picture of Moki and Orange Boy taken a few weeks ago in momma bean's new house (I should note that momma bean didn't actually buy a new house, she moved in with her cousin, who was kind enough to rent her out a room... Orange Boy was orginally staying with Moki and momma bean at their new place, but was unable to fully roam around the house because momma bean's cousin was renting out rooms in the house to a co-worker who had patical custody of some small children. The roomates have since moved out, as was the original plan when momma bean first moved in, so now all the kitties can come, stay and have full roaming rights to the house...)

Well thats about all for this update...Momma bean will get some more pictures taken and posted soon. She'll also be around to personally say hi and catch up with everyone as well!

Just A Quick Note

Due to my crazy schedule I haven't had much time to update Moki's blog recently. In any event, I just wanted to let everyone know that Moki is doing just fine...I finish up my finals the week of the 23rd, so you can look forward to a more detailed update including new pictures of Moki after then.

Thanks everyone for all the continued well wishes!

Regards,

Momma Bean

So we wanted to give everyone a quick update on Moki, try and answer the recent questions posed by Ratmammy, and send Auntie Deb a be-lated happy birthday wish. (Sorry we missed you actual birthday Auntie Deb...we hope you had a nice one!)

So here it goes...

At the moment Moki is doing quite well. He is actually doing better than I have seen him, in perhaps the past six months...He has a strong appetite, as you can see from the above video (sorry about the angle,) and has been incredibly playful, so playful in fact that he is mimicking Orange Boy's behaviors and actions! Orange Boy, ever since he was a kitten, has always loved to curl up in the secret hidey holes of blankets...Now Orange Boy is sharing his passion with Moki, teaching him all the ropes...and Moki couldn't be more thrilled about his newly learned lessons from Orange Boy.

Now in regards to Ratmammy's questions, since most if not all of the answers to Ratmommy's questions can already be found located through out Moki's blog, I will give only a brief answer to each of the questions, and if you would like more detail please let me know...

What is the reason for Moki's condition (his disability) and was this how he was when you found him? Or did he develop the physical disability?

The answer to your question is a very complex one, hence in order to fully understand one would need to go back and read all of our prior posts. With that said, I will do my best to try and answer the question in a way that might make sense while still keeping things fairly brief...

Moki was born a normal feral kitten. He was trapped by some kind soul and brought into the no-kill shelter where I volunteered 5 days a week. At that time not many of the shelter volunteers liked to socialize the feral kittens, so after a week or two of Moki being in the shelter, I agreed to bring him home for socialization purposes, so that he could eventually be adopted out.

Moki who was about as feral as they come hissed, spit and growled at just about everybody. However after a couple of days of cleaning his cage he began to take to me, and instantly bonded with my boyfriend when I finally brought him home for socialization. He loved being able to run around the house, and early on, could be found jumping off just about anything of height, beds, counters, you name it.

After a brief period of socialization, Moki began to show signs of what appeared to be a URI. Initially we treated it accordingly, but it got progressively worse. He was taken to both my private vet and the shelter's vet. Both agreed that it was nothing more than a URI, and sent us home with more medication. As things continued to decline, he was checked into the shelters vet, for a more detailed examination. Moki continued to get worse under the shelter vet's care, and I eventually had him moved to an emergency hospital who could monitor him 24hrs a day. By the time the move was made, Moki was so bad off, that the ER vet advised me to say my final goodbyes because they did not believe Moki would make it through the night.

The following morning when a new doctor came on shift, she called me because she believed that their had been a mix up in the medical charts. The medical description of Moki up to that point did not match the cat that she was now looking at, and she asked me to please come down to the hospital to confirm that this was the same cat. Moki had made a miracle turn around over night. Unfortunately that turn around was not without side effects.

Moki would survive but the ER doctor told us that Moki would most likely never be able to sit up on his own again, would always have to have a plate of food held up to his face to eat, and would most likely never walk. Personally I felt it was to early to reach such conclusions so I brought him home. At this time the ER doctor made a diagnoses of Cerebellar Hypoplasia, which as I have mentioned in other postings is a painless condition.

To the amazement of the ER doctor, in the days and weeks that followed, Moki started to sit up on his own, eat on his own from a plate on the ground, and walk, taking only a few steps before falling over, but walking none the less. His progress called into question the Cerebellar Hypoplasia diagnoses, so he was taken to the neurology department at UC Davis to see if they could make heads or tails of his case. This is when we did the MRI and many of the other tests, of course in the end however, even UC Davis was baffled.

In examining Moki, the neurologist, amongst other things, completed a number of x-rays over a period of months. The first x-rays looked normal, but the x-ray taken at the time of Moki's MRI revealed a change in Moki's thoracic inlet structure. At this point Moki's case was referred to one of UC Davis's orthopedic surgeons. The orthopedic surgeon had never seen anything quite like Moki's orthopedic problem before, so while researching possible causes, he recommended that we start Moki on a course of physical therapy. The physical therapist, in turn recommended doing hydrotherapy for Moki's condition.

So to shorten up an already long story, no one really knows what Moki is suffering from. They cannot tell us the exact cause of Moki's orthopedic problem only it's effects. What they can tell us is that the neurological problem has contributed to the orthopedic problem and hence Moki's physical disability, but they cannot tell us why or how. The best comparison I can come up with would be to that of a stroke victim, who prior to the stroke functioned normally, however after the stroke, the victim ended up needing cane, wheelchair or some other adaptive device. While we know Moki didn't have a stroke, the outcome is similar to many stroke victims if that makes sense...

That brings us to our current state. Nobody has ever figured out exactly what Moki has because nobody has every seen anything quite like it. To make matters worse, there are no known documented cases of anything similar to Moki's case. So that leaves us only with what we do know from what we have seen in Moki and that is whatever it is that made Moki sick originally, lets call it some sort of a virus, appears to still be present in his system. It is not contiguous as is evident by the fact that none of our other cats ever got sick, and neither have any of the cats who where originally housed with Moki at the shelter. The virus doesn't appear to be in an active stage at all times, but instead lies dormant for extended periods of time then suddenly out of the blue resurfaces. Thus far we have learned that we can control the virus with Tamiflu when it does surface, but we do not know exactly why the Tamiflu works, or for how long it will work for that matter. We know that the physical disability is in huge part a result of the virus but again we do not know why. We know that Moki is an amazing fighter, and that every medical test we have ever conducted after his initial illness for the most part has come back normal, making him appear completely healthy despite his obvious condition and most importantly we know that Moki is both happy and in no pain.

I hope that kind of answers your question. If you need further clarification please let me know...

Wishing You All A...

Mother's Day Glitter Graphics