Free at last! (but still so frail)

I had decided that I needed to move Big Mike upstairs to the guest bedroom, after he’d been in the bathroom for a month and had started showing signs of restlessness, looking anxiously out the door when I’d walk in as if he’d finally realized there was a big world out there with lots of interesting things (and food! maybe FOOD?!) in it.

The day I planned to move him I came downstairs to find the door open, the bathroom torn up and Big Mike nowhere in sight. Did we have thunder during the night? And how on earth did he get the door open?!

I panicked a bit, though in fact there was little bad that could happen if he were loose in the house – short of fisticuffs with an indignant Iggy, Claude or Lena. But as they were all slumbering peacefully, I was mystified as to where the lumbering, limping sweetie could have gone. I finally found him in the linen closet upstairs, looking a little anxious but otherwise fine.

I moved his things to the guest bathroom, which is twice the size of the downstairs one, with a window for natural light and fresh breezes. When it was prepared, I hauled him carefully out of the closet and made him comfortable in the bathroom, putting up the folding gate between bathroom and bedroom. He’ll never get over that, I thought – not with his limp and his wound.

When I came back an hour later, he had not only scrambled over the gate, he had now ensconced himself under the bed – just the place I did NOT want him to be. Even though it’s an antique bed with  a lot of head room underneath, I needed to be able to reach him both for socializing purposes and doctoring purposes. I needn’t have stressed; after a day of hiding, he began happily coming out for food (his raison d’être) and cuddles.

Doctoring, on the other hand, was less of a motive. My one and only meltdown during this month of playing nurse to a wounded cat came when Dr. Sue was unable to work me into her schedule and told me I should change his bandages myself. To say I did it clumsily was an understatement. No longer acting like an abused cat who curls up in a ball and waits for the misery to be over, Big Mike has discovered that if he wriggles and tries to escape, he can curtail the poking, prodding and peeling to a certain degree. So this is NOT a one-person job – especially for the likes of me, the world’s worst nurse. Pleased that I was able to stomach the suppurating wound without barfing, I broke down in tears when after just a few hours he had managed to shed all the bandaging in one fell swoop, and it now encircled his ankle again like a Flashdance devotee.

Even as I moaned and groaned and cussed, when I looked up he was sitting in front of me quietly, looking me in the eyes. Sensing a cat version of an apology, I kissed his giant head and told him it was okay.

I enlisted the talents of Kim, my friend and petsitter, who has worked in the medical field, and she and I redid my clumsy attempt yesterday, and so far things are holding together. I still feel like there’s something more I could be doing to speed this process that we’re both getting so frustrated with. My friend Sandy is letting me borrow her veterinary laser that she swears by, and I’m pondering getting a second opinion, though I’m not crazy about spending the money, and Big Mike’s fund is about maxed out.

I am already starting to think about who might want to adopt him, once his wound has healed, and it kills me to think about giving him up. It’s hard to say why this kitty has so captured me since he first appeared in the field in May, trailing blood behind his gruesome wound. His bravery? His sweetness? Could it also be because I am dealing with a wound myself (a scar from having a basal cell carcinoma removed two weeks ago) that I so empathize with his plight?

I don’t know. But I do know it’s been miraculous to see him transform from a scared, possibly abused kitty to one that trusts and loves again. When he does go, it will be to a cherry-picked someone I know will change his life the way he’s changed mine. This I promise to both this saintly kitty and the saints who brought us together.