Physical Therapy / Water Therapy Appointment 2

As many of you know, yesterday Moki had his second physical therapy appointment. He was the last appointment for the day and everyone at the office had gone home except for Rebecca, who has been working with Moki.

As some of you may recall, when we originally opted to do water therapy, Moki's water therapy was to take place in the whirlpool instead of the actual pool. Last week, during his first appointment, Moki's therapy took place in the pool, because the patient before Moki, a cute little doggie, who had been in the whirlpool was really dirty, and left the water filthy. Rebecca had thus opted to do Moki's water therapy in the pool, which was much cleaner, until they had a chance to clean out the whirlpool. This week, we got back to the original plan, and Moki's therapy took place in the whirlpool.

At First the appointment did not go well. Moki seemed to figure out that if we placed him in the whirlpool and he refused to move, or paddle his legs, we would eventually give up and taken him out of the whirlpool. Moki can be quite stubborn at times.

I had told Rebecca that I had been working with Moki in our own bathtub during the week. I wanted to see if maybe I could get Moki use to the water, there by making him less afraid during his actual therapy sessions. I had felt our bathtub session was quite successful because I had gotten Moki to paddle his front legs quite a bit. Unfortunately, I was unable to get him to use his back legs. Having heard this, and given the fact that Moki was now refusing to move at all for Rebecca, Rebecca was begining to lean towards giving up. Rebecca felt that if I was able to get him to use his front legs at home in the bathtub, and that if Moki was going to refuse to move at all during his actual therapy session, then it might be best if we saved our money to use on the things that Moki really needed, and just worked with Moki at home, instead of spending our money to pay for therapy sessions in which Moki refused to do anything.

With that said, I decided to set down the camera, and help Rebecca in what at the time appeared as though it might be Moki's last water therapy session at the physical therapy office. With four hands we where able to place Moki close to the edge of the whirlpool. I had mentioned to Rebecca that if Moki could see out of the whirlpool, like he could in our bathtub at home, he might be more inclined to use his front legs to try and climb out of the whirlpool, which is what he had done in our own bathtub, and was how I was able to get him to paddle with his front legs so successfully. Upon trying this, we noticed Moki began to paddle his front legs, he wanted out of the water, so he kept trying to use his front legs to grab at the edge of the whirlpool and pull himself out. While I held Moki's upper half of his body, so that he could paddle with his front legs in an attempt to reach the edge of the whirlpool and pull himself out, Rebecca began to work with Moki's back legs. After awhile, through working together, we began to discover something. If you placed your hands under Moki's back legs, he would kick really hard in an attempt to spring board off of them and get out of the water. We then began to take turns holding the upper half of his body, while the other placed their hands under his back legs. By letting Moki rest his back legs on our hands just long enough for him to spring board off of them, before pulling our hands away, Moki began to develop a fierce kicking with his back legs. I can honestly say that this was the strongest kicking I have ever seen Moki do with his back legs.

Of course Moki was extremely mad that we had figured out a way to get him to paddle all of his legs, (I guess you can say, in the end we where more stubborn than him...) and so he began to bite at the whirlpool nobs in frustration. He really laid into those knobs, he was so mad, and I had to eventually get him to stop the biting because I was afraid that he could chip or break a tooth. So we pulled him a little further away from the edge and continued his therapy.

In the end, this turned out to be the best therapy session! Moki had paddled so hard that he got a really good cardio workout, which for Moki is particularly good, since he cannot do all of the normal things, like running and jumping which helps to keep a cats heart healthy. He also used his legs with a force I have never seen before, which means that he got a really good muscular workout. However I think our biggest break through, was the fact that Moki got upset. He was showing the normal attitude of a cat being placed in water. He was not going to take this lying down, he was going to put up a fight, and fight is exactly what he did!

So we will continue with the physical therapy. I wan't able to get alot of pictures this time, because I had to get my hands wet to help Moki, but next time I may be able to get more if another therapist is on site to help Rebecca work with Moki. What we learned is that it's going to take two people working with Moki to make his water therapy a success. I was able to get one picture for you of Moki in the whirlpool. This was taken after Rebecca and I worked with Moki. (It is the very first picture featured...I asked Rebecca if she could hold him for just a minute while I snapped the photo.) The remaining pictures are all of Rebecca cleaning up Moki after his therapy. This time I was able to record a video of Moki getting a shower...

Moki was very tired after his water therapy appointment yesterday, and today he is very sore from using all his muscles in a way he is not accustomed to using them. His back legs are so sore that he is even having a hard time getting around today, so I am helping him get from place to place alot. I also have a nice massage session planed for him, just as soon as I finish this entry, to help with the muscle soreness...

On a different note, we would like thank Peggy, who won this weeks raffle. After emailing Peggy to tell her the good news, we received the following in reply:

"WOW! I never win anything!!!
I would like you to keep the prize and raffle it again to get more money for Panther & Moki. Just watching that movie of Moki choosing MY name was prize enough. I'm so impressed with all you do for all the blog kitties out there.
I don't have a web page (too lazy to keep one going). I do have a catster page for my kids.
http://www.catster.com/family/621797
Thank you so much and tell Panther's and Moki's humans to give them a little extra love from me.
Peggy"

We can't express enough our thanks to Peggy, but we will try! Criz Cat's Sanctuary, created this nice thank you just for Peggy, and we where wondering if all you Catster's out there could stop by Peggy's Catster page and leave her wonderful kitties a treat or two to help show our thanks!

Thank you so much Peggy! We will hold a second raffle for this wonderful prize package, in honor of Peggy, shortly.