PLATTSBURGH -- Dale Chaffee rolled the tiny plastic ball along the kitchen floor.

The small black cat pounced on it, striking it with her paw and renewing the chase when it ricocheted against the nearby wall.

It was a typical move for a feline barely more than a kitten, antics anyone who has a cat never grows tired of watching.

But this cat, named Rosa, moved differently from most.

She swayed on her legs, as if they didn't have the strength to hold her body, and at times she would stumble and lose her balance, only to rise quickly and continue her never-ending effort to corral the tiny ball.

Rosa is about a year old, and her short life has been filled with crests and valleys.

She suffers from traumatic brain injury, a condition her owner knows only too well.

FRAGILE KITTEN

"One day, this little black kitty came to me, no more than four weeks old," said Dale's wife, Vicki Chaffee, who is a victim of traumatic brain injury. "She was so tiny and so fragile. She had to be bottle fed."

Vicki brought the animal to the vet's office, where it was determined that the kitten had suffered the debilitating injury sometime during those first four weeks of life.

"She was stumbling all over," Vicki said of the young kitten's efforts to move. "I asked the vet, What do you think about her quality of life?' and said I didn't want her to suffer."

But the vet said there was no need to euthanize the kitten, that she would learn to compensate for her disability.

"She was barely walking at all, but she has come so far since then," Vicki said. "She plays with the other cats, she runs into things, bumps her head, shakes it off and gets back and starts all over again.

"She is happy, and she is my inspiration. If she can do it, then I shouldn't feel so bad about myself. She gives me so much encouragement every day."

CRASH changed life