So much has happened. First, here’s a photo of maybe 30 goslings. Don’t think I’ve ever seen this many at once.
On May 20th Spot and I sat down on the dock and then climbed aboard Kevin’s sailboat. He was very happy.
I haven’t mentioned this, but sometime in April a feral cat showed up and he and Spot got into some big fights. At the beginning of May we took Spot to the vet for an antibiotic shot because he’d been badly bitten under his ear. We were hopeful that the cat would go away but it didn’t. And then last Monday, Memorial day, Kevin went off to do a couple of Memorial Day events with the 114th. Spot was standing up on his cat house when Kevin left, and Kevin fed both outdoor kitties. He left about 8:15.
I was going for a short jog and when I went outside at 10:30, Spot was curled up tightly on the porch chair. I petted him and he hissed at me, which was weird. I kept going in and out to collect my things and he hissed again, and then he looked up at me but his eyes were closed. I decided that I’d only be gone for 30 minutes and then I’d figure out what might be going on with him.
As I was running I decided I’d give him some Gabapentin when I got home because maybe the crazy feral cat had attacked him again and he must be in pain. But when I got home Spot was nowhere to be seen.
We looked and looked for him, but didn’t see him anywhere. We kept looking at the security camera footage – Spot was there until about ten minutes after I left to go jogging and then he vanished. No sign of any activity, no bad cat rushing to the scene. We kept thinking Spot would come back, but he was nowhere to be found. On Tuesday he still didn’t appear and by Wednesday we were sure he must have perished. We continued to look for him but felt it was hopeless. A very sad day.
At around five o’clock on Wednesday evening Riley came running through the house with his tail puffed up. Kevin went out into the fenced yard, and there was Spot, lying in the cat house.
He looked OK but it was apparent that he was anything but. I texted Amy that we’d found him but he was injured and she started rapidly texting that we needed to get him to the vet, who she called, but they couldn’t see him so we took him to the Animal Emergency clinic.
We tried to get a cat carrier into the cat house but it didn’t fit, so Kevin picked up Spot lying on the cushion lying on a board on the cat house floor and carried him to the car, like a gurney. Spot was clearly in such bad shape.
At the ER the vet said he had an injured leg, a couple of puncture wounds, his leg was swollen and he was dehydrated but she thought he’d be OK. They gave him fluid, antibiotics, pain meds and sent us home.
We decided Spot was going to be a garage kitty instead of an outdoor cat from now on. On Thursday he mostly just slept. Later in the day Amy texted, asking if Spot had eaten anything. They hadn’t mentioned anything about food at the ER, but as far as we knew he hadn’t had anything to eat since Monday morning. By this time our vet was closed, so I called the ER and the woman there said that was a very long time for no food and she said we could bring him in, but we didn’t want to put him through that again.
We made an appointment to take him to our vet at four yesterday afternoon, but when we relayed his status to the medical team they told us to bring him right in, which we did. He was very dehydrated again and they were going to first do a FLV/FIV test on him. Feline Leukemia and Feline Aids. We left him there.
The vet called soon after to say that he was positive for FIV, which meant that his chance of recovery wasn’t as good because he didn’t have a working immune system. We got the feeling the vet was waiting to see if we’d say “well, you should euthanize him,” but of course we didn’t say that. They said they’d give him more antibiotics because he also had punctures on his neck. I asked about the possibility of our indoor kitties having FIV, since Spot has climbed over the fence into the fenced yard many times. They said they’d get back to me.
Shortly thereafter a vet tech called to say that the vet said we should bring all five indoor kitties in to be tested for FIV. We immediately went to the basement and dragged cat carriers upstairs. I’d been texting to the lovely and knowledgeable Sunny, our friend who had been helping us with the kitties since we first found Lester in 2011.
Sunny kept texting with questions about the FIV testing so I finally called her and she said she didn’t think they needed to be tested because all the cats had been around each other and even if they have FIV, there’s nothing we could do about it. We weren’t going to separate them; we already have Pumpkin sequestered upstairs and now Spot in the garage.
Whew, we were relived that at least we didn’t have to transport kitties to the vet all day.
When we finally went to collect Spot, the vet gave us subcutaneous fluids to give him every day, plus pain meds and antibiotics. We had a discussion about the chance of our other kitties having FIV, and she agreed we could just have each of them checked when we took them for their annual appointments. Cats with FIV can live a long and healthy life as long as they don’t get sick.
So now, we wait and worry and check on Spot. Hopefully he’ll pull through but at the very least we know where he is and are doing everything we can for him. I know he’s been in many fights throughout his 13-year life and he’s managed to survive without anybody’s help, so we are cautiously optimistic about his chances now.
The thing is, we wonder how he managed to get into the fenced yard on Monday or whenever he did that since he was in such huge pain. And then was he lying hidden under the hostas for two days? A very strong kitty.
Whew. It’s a new month, hopefully it’ll be a little calmer than last month.
ok then,
Mrs.Slightly Frazzled Hughes.