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WILLI WHIZKAS HAS EMERGENCY SURGERY
Willi Whizkas is not a particularly bright cat. We know this and it has been confirmed by our vet. When intelligence was handed out Wills was nowhere to be seen! He just has fluff between his ears where his brains should be. He watches in amazement as our other cats open doors and walk through, whereas he will just sit and cry until a human lets him through to the food on the other side. Then one night, in a once in a lifetime flash of brilliance, he worked out that if he was outside, in the middle of the night, feeling a bit cold and wet, then if he just tapped his claws on the glass panel by the front door, a human would wake up and obligingly let him in. If that didn't work, then thrash with both paws, claws fully extended and drum constantly on the glass until a human got so irritated he would be let in. Smile on whiskers then cuddle up with annoyed human whose night's sleep had been ruined. However, it appeared that having learned such a fabulous trick, it was to be cruelly taken away from him. Willi Whizkas had a pea sized lump on his front left leg, which last October the vet diagnosed as arthritis. Wills was approaching his 12th birthday and seemed to be slowing down, coupled with a very cold winter he seemed the throw himself into his dotage, and took to whiling the days away in his snoozzzeee by a hot radiator. He just got lazier and just seemed content to sleep the days away. Even the blackbirds were getting to be too much trouble to go out and terrorise. It was too easy to just supervise them from his snoozzzeee rather than go outside and chase them around. The lump on his leg started to grow, and we thought it was the arthritis setting in. He developed a cough and started to wheeze and snore. Old age, we put it down to; he was getting to be an old cat that needed looking after. In fact Tom Cat Towers had become his rest home as he did less and less and snored more and more. One night we noticed he was walking strangely, almost on the inside of his paw. He was hobbling. When we picked him up his lump, which was solid, had exploded in size and felt very gel-like. He had lost weight, gone off his food and was just lying around on his back wheezing and shaking; he looked and felt very sorry for himself. It was an instant trip to the vet: Saint Ben of Park Street Surgery. It didn't look good. The initial prognosis was that he had a very aggressive tumour, possibly cancer which may have gone into his lungs which could account for the lethargy and wheezing. If it hadn't progressed into his body, then he would have to have his leg amputated. I felt sick. Wills had been such an active cat, and to lose his leg and have to learn to walk again, we felt quite heartbroken for our big ginger wuss. The best news would be that he lost a leg, but at least we would still have the old rascal! The worst scenario was that we would have to figure where in the garden we would soon have to lay him to rest. He was booked in for anaesthetic and X-rays and we held our breath as we waited to hear the worst. In the meantime he was on 'spoilt-duty' as he was offered his favourite foods. But tuna bored him and being hand fed his absolute favourite Royal Canin Maine Coon kibbles held no joy. It was so sad to see him almost fading away. It was with heavy hearts that he was taken to Park Street Surgery and left for the day. When we got him home it was as if we had brought a new cat back!! He went straight down the garden, bounced over the fence and was off after mischief and adventure. It turned out that he had a bursa - a protective sac which had grown rapidly round his arthritic joint. The wheezing was due to a chest infection and a low-level allergy which he'd had since a kitten (which wasn't worth trying to pin-down at his great age). The bursa had 20ml of liquid drained off and he was given a course of antibiotics. As he is getting stronger and better and the weight is now starting to pile back on him, he views the pill bottle with great suspicion and it takes two of us to wrestle the pills down him. His Royal Canin kibbles are being hoovered down at an alarming rate. He can't be bothered being hand fed individual kibbles; he has to gobble them down as if he's never been fed! We have to hide the tin as he's almost worked out, in desperation, how to get the lid off!
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The
blackbirds have become very wary and he swaggers into the garden with a glint on
his whiskers! Our old mogbag looks good for a few years yet!! 