A month gone wrong
This is a story of a month gone all wrong.
It started with noticing that my beloved cat, Other Guy, was losing a lot of weight. We went to our excellent vet, who said that he had a blocked saliva gland that was causing swelling in his mouth so that he couldn’t swallow. She started him on antibiotics and an anti-inflammatory.
Then wild pigs, or cinghiale, came into my garden one night and uprooted one–third of it.
Then the rain we expect in April came in May, so I couldn’t tackle the destruction and weeds started to grow in the plowed up areas.
Still Other Guy couldn’t eat or drink much, so back we went to the vet. He needed to have a saliva gland removed, but he needed to gain some weight first for the surgery to be safe. I hand fed him and cooked for him and managed to get almost a pound of weight back on in a week. So he had surgery, and while he was under anesthetic, she felt it was a good time to take a benign tumor he’s had for ten years off his back as well.
From the first moment of being really awake he started pulling the stitches out of his back incision. Because he had another incision on his neck, he couldn’t wear the Elizabethan collar that would be a normal response to that. Instead, every single night he would worry at those stitches and then stand up in total satisfaction and shake blood everywhere. Drops hitting my face were my wakeup call. Four times he did that and four times he removed enough stitches for the wound to be potentially deadly and he had to be re-sewn. He found metal staples were the easiest to remove, done with a single whip of the neck.
So we finally used an Elizabethan collar, because his neck was healed. And at breakfast one day, the collar had to be removed for eating, instead of attacking breakfast he whipped out 3 inches worth of stitches. Then I tugged on to him a really ugly leg warmer to protect the incision area. He looks like a badly trained monkey.
Yesterday he could no longer eat or drink anything. I was reduced this morning to making tiny bits of smoked salmon and offering them on my finger tips. He greedily took them and then they fell out of his mouth. So back to the vet we went. The swelling in his mouth had increased to fill his mouth, because in chewing his food, he was biting the swelling.
More shots to reduce the swelling, and once more I have to get water and special recovery foods into him, using a syringe. Every hour or two, around the clock, I wrap him tightly into a towel, and using the syringe, insert liquid food and water into the 1/8 inch space that remains on the left side of his mouth. One tablespoon at a time, I have to save his life by forcing it into him.
Small wonder, then, that the normal parts of life are slipping and that sometimes food for a day is French toast at midnight.
I can hear the cinghiale across the river grunting their plans to wreak more havoc in my garden. If I had the energy I’d wait with a knife. If there weren’t cat food bits glued to the floors, I’d vacuum them. If there were anywhere but my knee or draped over my sleeping head that comforted Other Guy, I might get the bathroom sparkling. Or the ironing pressed. Or the guest beds made up. Or, or, or… but in the end, the life of my loyal friend of eleven years, as careless as he is of it, means more to me.
I’m hungry right now, but for what? Even the bacon, tomato and cheese solution seems too much. It’s easier to ignore it. These are only the highlights of this month-long slog. There is more, as is there not always?
One day I expect to laugh about this month, but not today.
Ugh, hang in there Judith! Why can\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\’t these cats realize what we are doing?
Tell me! He’s so irritated at this feeding thing. He wants to rip my face off. So he’s trying to eat normal food, and it is everywhere.
I wonder if I could love a person enough to allow them to be this smelly and filthy?
Oh, Judith. I am so sorry that you and Other Guy are going through this, but I completely understand. I did that the year my cat, Ernie, who looks very much like Other Guy, was shot in both back legs. I still have him, at 16-17 year old. He is my baby. They are worth it.
Shame evident in every inch of him. Poor stupid boy.
Poverini both of you! I\’ve gotten clawed many a time trying to nurse one of my sick kitties (I had two with feline leukemia). Good thing they\’re so damn cute. I hope both of you are feeling better :)
Hey something funny is going on with the backslash apostrophe action. I swear I only typed apostrophes and no backslashes.
Oh man. Feeding a cat with a syringe is heck. Poor you. Poor OG.
At the moment he is stretched out on a chaise longue on the terrace where he watched 4 women put up an iron gazebo which of course is to keep the sun off him. He seems satisfied until the next go round of food and water.
Mummifying in towels is a good move indeed.
Poor Other Guy, and poor Judith! I’ve been there myself, and you’ve already said it - the life of your friend of eleven years is worth it. What’s REALLY annoying is that he’ll bounch back very quickly, and completely forget all the effort you’ve made, and want to know what you’ve done for him lately. He will, of course, remember the collar and the leg-warmer, and it will take him a while to forgive your causing him such an undignified appearance. Cats!!!
In the meantime, I’ll be thinking of you both.
(NOT) I think I’ve discovered something! Each time I tried and failed to get the system to recognize the 5 stupid validating characters, it seems to have added a slash to each apostrophe. I kept editing them out of the post above.
Tonight he ATE! He ate 2 whole tablespoons without clawing me. I guess he finally realized that was how food would get in for now. He tried the dish first, though.
Thank goodness! I hope the swelling has reduced and that he\’ll be soon out of your ICU…
I can\’t possibly imagine your place covered with tuna pieces and blood stains everywhere.
Do you think it is tuna that makes this food smell so bad? I know there has to be chicken in it. Both OG and I get this stuff on us when he eats, but he now embraces the eating method, even literally when he grabs my hand, claws extended, to pull the syringe closer. We even used a demitasse spoon to scoop even more in this morning.
My laundry increases, the clouds have moved in and rain is predicted. Oh well, at least he is not only eating, but demanding to eat and no towel mummifying is required. He lays in my arm like a baby and chomps down on the syringe and sucks the food down faster than I can scoop it up.
I hope he’ll be willing to give this up once his mouth is working again.
The blood is all cleaned up. That was last weekìs laundry. Omino Bianco is a great product!
You sure have all of the points you\’ll ever need to be granted a passport to \
I’m sure that now he’s accustomed to having women fawning over him and feeding hin nasty smelly nutritious tidbits he’ll be thrilled to go back to living outside and eating regular food with the others.
You make it sound like he’d make a good bachelor.
He is a bachelor!
Hi Judith,
I was wondering how Other Guy is getting on? I must take my hat off to you for being so patient with him. Cats definitely do not make good patients…
As to your cinghiale problem, you could try dangling cinghiale salami around the boundary of your lands as a warning to them a la middle ages head on pole feudal style?
I am so sorry about Other Guy. It is such a grief to see our furry children in pain, and not understanding what is happening to them. I think the kitty-sock thing will help — congrats on your innovation! Poor baby (both of you).
Good and bad news. The canned stuff stank so badly that I thawed a rolled veal breast and made a simple brasato from it and turned some of it into baby food. It was a huge hit. It was such a hit that OG tried to shove the food and my hand into his mouth with every bite. He is graduated to the demitasse spoon all the time, which means it goes in faster and he gets and wants more food. It\’s very rich and gelatinous, includes carrots and celery and leek for flavor as well as some thyme. That meant I could eat it too! But not pureed.
The bad news his he uses his claws to get my hand to his mouth faster. The other bad news is that I left the opened tin on the counter to feed him for 10-15 minutes and when I returned flies had laid eggs in it! Does that say something about how nasty that stuff is?
“You sure have all of the points you\’ll ever need to be granted a passport to \”
I got the “hex” from Sognatrice!!! I was trying to say that you have sure earned all of the points that you will need to be granted a passport to heaven!
I am even more saintly this morning. (shut up eg, I am working on my image here.) I’ve been working on the soon to be unveiled website and have been called away 5 times to prepare chicken for his consumption. I have then washed him and the floor 5 times, too.
I see all those slashes. Are we becoming a slash site?
I have spent much of the day looking at your new site and your blog, it is great, very well done.
When my guinea pig ate snail pellets, the vet said to put him to sleep, I said no, all through the night and day, I used a pipette to syringe water into him, every 4 hours, night and day. After 24 hours I introduced Weetabix in a very sloppy mixture. It took me a week to get him able to feed himself. He was a shadow of his size and I kept him in a box in the airing cupboard to keep him warm. His name was Squeakey (After the English dish, Bubble and Squeek), he lived for 7 years and died cradled in my arms.
Why not put baby\’s socks on the boy\’s claws, it should help a bit - Good luck.
Judith