Cat with herniated disk (post surgery) - long term care? (house, couch)

[Pywaket]

Hi guys. My 5 year old cat very suddenly had a herniated disc near the base of his spine. He went from mobile at the vet, to paralyzed by the time I got him home. Long story short, we took him to a specialist and were able to get him the care he needed (we have pet insurance!). He's spent the last 6 weeks in a large kennel, and I've just let him out today, as this was the day the neurologist said it would be okay for him to roam the house.

We've taken down the cat tree and have barricaded off the top of the refrigerator as best we can, but now what? The neurologist said that it is rare for a cat to have a herniated disk, so he didn't have too many recommendations regarding how to keep our cat safe. He said that jumping up onto beds and couches would be fine, but that we need to try and keep him off of anything higher than that, as the impact of jumping down may cause another rupture (apparently he has disk compression).

Does anyone out there have any experience with this and their own cat? Our guy regained use of his bladder, bowels, back legs and most of his tail, so he's fairly mobile. I feel bad that we have to take away all of the vertical spaces for him and our other cat, but it's either this or he risks further damaging his spine. I would love any recommendations for keeping him happy and healthy! We've ordered a RippleRug as a sort of cat tree alternative. I'm hoping he'll like it.

[catdad7x]

What I've done in the past (and currently) for my senior cats is to provide steps, or some object to climb up on, to allow them to get on the bed, sofa, window sill, water bowl table, etc. Usually when they've reached 13 or 14 years old, they've stopped wanting to jump up. Mostly they no longer try to get up on the counter, or refrigerator, or anything high up without easy access.

You could try this approach for some lower elevated spaces, but him being still relatively young there's no guarantee that he won't jump down, or use even the steps at all. So there's still some risk there.

I built two lofts (above doorways) for my cats. They are platforms partially covered with an open-sided 'house' about 7' above the floor. At one end is a vertical post with a alternating step platforms on each side of it for 'stairs' up to the platform. They have to use the steps to go up or down, so there's no jumping either way. If you had something like that to give him that high-up space, perhaps you could eliminate all the other risky elevated ones. My lofts took a little bit of work, but weren't all that bad to build.

Glad to hear your boy came through his surgery ok, and hope he stays well. And good luck with finding a way to keep him from risky jumps.