Saturday, 6 August 2011

Saturday 6th August 2011: Return of the cat.

There have been times when this week has been hard, for three days and nights there was no further sign of molly; no meow, no footprints just a bump in the night that may or may not have been her coming in through the window.

Friday came, last day of work for the week. I left off a bit early, went to the butcher's and Tesco. Tired out we had pizza and beer for dinner, then planned our trip to Essex for the Saturday. Churches, market squares, bead shops and maybe a steam railway.

As the football season began this weekend, and the first game of the Football League season was on TV, I sat down to watch it, and at half time grabbed a shower so we could go to bed nice and early so we would be fresh for an nice and early start in the morning.

Jools was reading in bed, I came out of the shower, dried off, and went to walk down the hall to the bedroom. In the shadows there was a cat.

Meow.

Molly? I said.

Meow.

I turned on the light, and it took a couple of seconds for the energy saving bulbs to power up, but in time, Molly was illuminated.

Meow.

She rolled on the floor showing her belly.

Meow.

Jools got up and locked the cat flap so Molly could not make another quick exit. She came up to see if it really was Molly.

It was.

as she rolled on the floor, I saw a huge lesion on the side of her neck; there was no fur or skin in a 2 inch circle. She seemed unworried by it though.

I went down to the kitchen to get food and water, and Molly ate well and drank deeply. I stroked her as she ate, as I had done when she was a kitten, and Molly purred more and raised her tail even higher.

We called the vet, and made arrangements for us to go to Canterbury for an emergency appointment. Molly was not happy about going into a box, and sang to us all the way into Canterbury. The vet looked and suggested it had probably been an abscess, which had burst. It was now an old wound, too old to stitch, so she would have to heal naturally. She got shots and in time we were allowed to bring her home.

Molly (slightly damaged)

We can't let her out for a while, and our trip today is cancelled, but for great reasons. There's always another time. We let her stay in with us, and she prowled around on and off all night, with the occasion 'hello' meow she does. She laid with us, and purred as we stroked her. Almost like being back to normal.

Molly is back.

2 comments:

forkboy said...

I do love to read stories with these sorts of happy endings.

And her picture reminds me so much of my feral/homeless Calico, who, oddly enough, also suffered from some injury or burt lesion last year. Except in her case her visit to the vet included stitches.

But I must say it seems rather cruel of you to put Jools in a box. Certainly she could have ridden in the passenger seat.

jelltex said...

Yes, Jools was unhappy with the box situation, so I put Molly inside instead. everyone was happier about that.

The wound is not drying out much, but it is early days as yet I guess.