Our cat Tarzan is in a bad way
It's 2am in the morning and I've just got up. I can't sleep because I'm worried. Our totally amazing cat 'Tarzan' who's in charge of keeping mice and rats at bay, is in a bad way.
He's one of those cats that's not really a cat. He goes on dog walks with us, hitchhikes to different towns and breaks into school every so often to get an extra fuss. He's one of those cats who has absolutely no fear of anything and will casually stroll down the middle of the road, refusing to move for car nor dog. He will wonder into people's houses all the time to cuddle up with them and make new friends.
He's known by pretty much everyone in our area. He's a cat that nearly every morning will go and cuddle up to my daughter whilst she's doing 30 minutes of nebuliser treatments. She hates doing these, but they are necessary for her and Tarzan takes the edge off by laying on her and comforting her.
Yesterday morning he didn't turn up for duty. He's barely moved from his bed in the last 24 hours. I first took him to the vets a month ago when I suspected something was wrong. He was given an antibiotic shot and some pain killers. Arthritis was suspected as well as a possible infection. After a couple of days, he did seem to perk up, but I still had this niggle that he wasn't quite right.
I wish I had acted sooner because now he's gone downhill very suddenly. I took him back to the vets today. As well as not moving much, or eating much, his breath suddenly smelled awful. The vet agreed he was looking very poorly and took bloods. He's been booked in for an anaesthetic next week to really get a better look at what's going on, particularly in his mouth. He's lost a lot of weight and if we can't get him to eat by tomorrow night, we're to call in for an emergency appointment for him to go under sooner.
I don't know how serious it is, and I don't know if the insurance will cover it but what I do know is that he's in a lot of pain. Pain that he probably wouldn't be in if I'd have pushed the vet a little sooner and a little harder in the first place. If I had gone back earlier and made a nuisance of myself, surely, they would have figured out what's going in before it got this bad.
Please let him be ok.
~Mrs Homestead-Wannabe @28th October 2023
*** UPDATE ON TARZAN ***
It's taken me a while emotionally to be able to come back to this post and update it. It's bad news - we had to let him go. We are all completely devastated. Tarzan really was one in a million and we will miss him like crazy. I'm grateful for the time we had with him but angry that perhaps this could have been avoided. We were so focussed on getting a property in an area with very little traffic passing because of his habit of sitting in the road and refusing to move. We finally found that property Tarzan, and we shall bring your spirit and your ashes with us. You may sit in the road as long as you like.
