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We're insane...
Jul. 11th, 2004 10:43 pmLife gets interesting sometimes.
One of the cats who visits us, a black and white bruiser of a tom whom we called Jellicle or Jelly for short, turned up recently after a long absence looking about half his former size and moving very slowly and painfully. At first we thought he'd just been a long way off tomcatting and lost some weight, but gradually I realised he was the wrong shape. His chest was barrelled out and his belly area had shrunk to about an inch and a half wide. He looked like a greycat. He still ate and washed himself and did all the usual cat things, but when we noticed his breathing (spasmodic and effortful) we decided it was time to do something. So we took him to the vet.
The vet kept him in and looked him over and did a battery of tests, and discovered that at some point in the preceding week or so he had been either run over or kicked very hard, and his disphragm had ruptured. The reason his belly was thin was that most of it was trying to move in with his lungs, hence the breathing problem. He would need a major operation, but his chances were good, and the price they quoted, while steep, was less than we had been imagining. So we said okay, go ahead.
He survived, he's convalescing now with a funnel round his head and we have to get pills and potions down him and not let him out till he's healed. The total bill came to more than twice what we were quoted, which was a bit of a shock, but there wasn't much we could do about it at this stage, and anyway a sizeable chunk of it was the tests they had had to do to find out what was wrong.
The reason I'm writing about this is that a couple of our friends have pointed out that in our situation (which hasn't improved noticeably) this could have been viewed as an incredibly stupid thing to do, and we should have had him killed (oh--sorry--"put down" sounds better, doesn't it?), or taken him to the PDSA (nearest one is Bristol) or Blue Cross (no idea) who for all we know would have done the same. Well, maybe, but we didn't. We did what we did, and in the same circumstances we'd probably do it again. He may not survive, which would be kind of ironic in the pointlessly nasty way the universe has...but if he does, he's ours.
And if I ever find who hurt him, I'll be getting the money back. One way or another.
One of the cats who visits us, a black and white bruiser of a tom whom we called Jellicle or Jelly for short, turned up recently after a long absence looking about half his former size and moving very slowly and painfully. At first we thought he'd just been a long way off tomcatting and lost some weight, but gradually I realised he was the wrong shape. His chest was barrelled out and his belly area had shrunk to about an inch and a half wide. He looked like a greycat. He still ate and washed himself and did all the usual cat things, but when we noticed his breathing (spasmodic and effortful) we decided it was time to do something. So we took him to the vet.
The vet kept him in and looked him over and did a battery of tests, and discovered that at some point in the preceding week or so he had been either run over or kicked very hard, and his disphragm had ruptured. The reason his belly was thin was that most of it was trying to move in with his lungs, hence the breathing problem. He would need a major operation, but his chances were good, and the price they quoted, while steep, was less than we had been imagining. So we said okay, go ahead.
He survived, he's convalescing now with a funnel round his head and we have to get pills and potions down him and not let him out till he's healed. The total bill came to more than twice what we were quoted, which was a bit of a shock, but there wasn't much we could do about it at this stage, and anyway a sizeable chunk of it was the tests they had had to do to find out what was wrong.
The reason I'm writing about this is that a couple of our friends have pointed out that in our situation (which hasn't improved noticeably) this could have been viewed as an incredibly stupid thing to do, and we should have had him killed (oh--sorry--"put down" sounds better, doesn't it?), or taken him to the PDSA (nearest one is Bristol) or Blue Cross (no idea) who for all we know would have done the same. Well, maybe, but we didn't. We did what we did, and in the same circumstances we'd probably do it again. He may not survive, which would be kind of ironic in the pointlessly nasty way the universe has...but if he does, he's ours.
And if I ever find who hurt him, I'll be getting the money back. One way or another.