MY wife and I share our home with three cats. We don’t treat them as pets but as kids in the family. They are therapeutic in many ways and their antics entertain me no end.
Truth be told, I spend more time with them than my wife because I work from home. She goes to work early in the morning and we don’t get to see each other until late in the evening.
The oldest is Cheeky, a white domestic short hair we adopted from an animal clinic in Ipoh nine years ago. He used to be feisty as a kitten but has put on considerable weight over the years and became sedentary. He was about 7.5kg the last time he was weighed.
The average weight for a male domestic short hair is between 3.5 kg to 4.5 kg. What perplexed us is the other two cats eat the same amount of food but are only half as heavy. They are normally well-behaved. Once in a while, they would be up to mischief and I would reprimand them. Those are welcome distractions. Being home alone for long stretches of time without any interaction with another person breeds monotony and boredom.
When I am at the work desk during the day, Cheeky is the only cat who would come to bug me. It was either to ask me for kibbles because he is hungry or to get me to open the front door because he wants to look out to the street.
If I ignored him, he would sit beside me and meow persistently until I obliged. Having lived together for so long, I sort of understood cat language. When he meowed, I would know what he meant or wanted.
He is my faithful siesta companion. When I get into bed, he would jump in as well and lie down by my side, purring loudly as I patted him until we both fell into a gentle slumber. That was our daily routine for many years until recently.
In the busyness of work, rushing to meet deadlines and recovering from the exhaustion afterwards, I missed out the small things that matter – the little tell-tale signs that something is not right with him.
And so for the past couple of weeks, little else mattered as I hurried to complete training materials and presentation slides. They were for a workshop that has just passed and a conference I will be attending in early February.
I was especially tied up with writing my script for the conference.
The topic was not one I typically cover. Moreover, participation is by invitation only. It was an honour to be selected and I wanted to make sure my presentation was precise and to the point.
I was so overwhelmed with work that Cheeky and I didn’t get to spend much time together during that period. Unbeknownst to us, he was acutely constipated. This is a condition he has had to endure occasionally for the past four years.
The impacted stool had to be manually removed under anaesthesia by a veterinarian each time it occurred. The experience always left him traumatised for a few days afterwards. Apparently constipation is one of the common health problem with cats.
We missed the first sign that he was ailing when he defecated on my side of the bed. One thing about cats – they don’t whine or complain even if they are unwell. We scolded him thinking he simply wanted attention.On the contrary, he was suffering silently.
To his credit, he is fussy about hygiene and cleanliness. After he is done in the litter box, he would always carefully cover it up. It was unlike him to do it anywhere else. When it dawned on us what was happening, we immediately took him to the veterinarian.
The x-ray of his abdomen showed the extent of the problem. He was admitted to have an IV drip for hydration and stool softener administration.
The veterinarian was reluctant to do manual evacuation anymore for fear of causing damage to the bowel lining.
Just before my wife left the clinic, he reached out from the cage and tapped her hand, asking to be taken home. My heart sank when I heard this. After all, he is a scaredy-cat and homebody at heart. We are the only two humans he is comfortable with.
When his condition didn’t improve after four days of treatment, the veterinarian had to remove the impacted stools manually. He was a sorry sight when we went to pick him up. There was a wound on his head and one on each foreleg from the insertion of IV drips.
He appeared bedraggled and groggy, partially from the anaesthesia and partially from the stress of being caged in an unfamiliar place.
We are glad he could come home to recuperate. However, the veterinarian had indicated that if the problem persisted, he may need to undergo surgery. It pained me deeply to see him suffer like that.
According to the veterinarian, our first priority now is to help him lose weight. That can alleviate his constipation, besides adding fibre to his diet and ensuring that he is well hydrated.
Cats, they have their own idiosyncrasies. I have come to love them for it. They don’t always come when called. But Cheeky likes to hang around me and vice versa. Each time I looked into his eyes and he mine, it was like we understood each other well. Indeed we do.
Here’s wishing him a speedy recovery and becoming his old self again albeit a slimmer one.