This is Blackjack. He likes to sit on things that he’s not supposed to be sitting on. I think that’s a fairly “normal” cat instinct. Until recently, his mood often tended to be as black as his fur, but two months ago, he had a near-death experience, and now he’s a changed cat.
If you recall, I was in Mexico two months ago. Right after I left to visit my friend for 3 weeks, Kim noticed that Blackjack wasn’t eating. This wasn’t a cause for alarm because he’s done that before when I’ve gone away for a few days — apparently when he’s upset by a change in his routine, he goes on a hunger strike.
However, he usually breaks down and starts eating again after a day or two.
This time, though, he hadn’t eaten a thing in 4 days, and he was in hiding. The hiding wasn’t anything new either because he doesn’t really like Willow, our big Labrador, who thinks the cat is a soft chew toy. Willow likes to jerk fur out of the cat’s nether regions and chew on it, so you can understand the cat’s desire to hide from such a beast.
This is Willow’s innocent look. Ha ha.
The problem was that on that 4th day, Kim hadn’t seen hide nor hair of the cat before leaving for work, and he’d looked everywhere for him. Since he’d also taken Willow with him so that she could have her nails trimmed, I called my father and asked him to go to my house and look for the cat.
I had a bad feeling something more insidious than a cat hunger strike was happening.
Dad obliged, but he couldn’t find Blackjack anywhere. Remember, I was in Mexico at this time, so I was simply coordinating things from afar. Dad called me back and told me he couldn’t find the cat. I began to really worry because he likes my dad and would definitely come out to greet him at any other time.
By this point, I felt certain the cat had crawled into a small space to die. Willow wasn’t in the house, so he had no need to hide. He hadn’t eaten in 4 days for sure. He wasn’t coming out to see my dad. Things were very wrong for my poor cat.
I told Dad areas to search, and he did so. No luck. No cat.
I was going a bit crazy in Mexico and it wasn’t because of tequila.
Finally, I asked Dad if he’d looked under the couch in the living room. He said he had. I then asked if he’d looked BEHIND the couch — since there’s a skirting around the bottom of the couch, you can’t see to the back wall simply by looking under the couch. He said, “The cat can’t fit back there, can he?”
I told him to look anyway. He set his phone down, and I soon heard him saying, “What are you doing back there, you silly cat?”
Relief. He’d found the cat.
He tried to get Blackjack to come out, but the cat simply hissed and growled at him.
Then I knew there was something very wrong with the cat. While he was a moody little shit at times, he never acted aggressively toward my dad.
I got a hold of Kim and told him he needed to get the cat to the vet right away. He called a vet in Norfolk who said the same thing but that they couldn’t see the cat that day — gee, thanks a lot!
He then called the vet who has seen Blackjack in the past for his shots and a time when he was sick, and the soonest they could get him in was the next morning near noon.
I was really kicking myself for being out of the country because if I’d been home, I would have rushed him over to the vet and demanded he be seen right then, but Kim was in a different town and unable to attend to the cat at the moment anyway.
All I could do was wait and hope.
The next day, Kim video called me from the vet’s consultation room. Tony, the vet, explained that Blackjack’s bladder was blocked and it was the size of a grapefruit! A grapefruit!
How was my poor cat still alive? How had his bladder not burst? Another day and he would have died for sure.
They kept him for two nights after inserting a catheter to relieve the pressure and the pain that was causing him to hide and growl and hiss and not eat. The first night, he chewed the catheter out, so he was clearly feeling better already. The vet put him on antibiotics, too, that Kim had the good fortune of having to administer orally until I returned home two weeks later.
Blackjack is now and forever on a diet of food to help sustain his kidneys and urinary tract in the hopes of preventing something like this. Prior to this major event, the cat had had urinary issues but nothing this extreme. However, now that I’ve seen the drastic personality change that has occurred with him, I wonder just how long his bladder and urinary tract may have been bothering him.
He is cuddly and adoring and fawning and wants to be with us all the time now. In fact, he’s plain needy at times. He especially loves to perch on Kim’s lap while Kim watches TV.
Kim is not happy about that, but clearly the cat looks at him as his savior. Before his near-death experience, he NEVER cuddled with Kim. He would cuddle with me quite often, but he steered clear of Kim. Now, Kim is his buddy, and Kim reluctantly accepts it. Very reluctantly accepts it.
Personally, I think it’s hilarious and adorable.
Blackjack will be 12 in April, so he’s getting old, but cats can live to 20 and beyond. He’s a totally different cat, that’s for sure, so with his new diet and his new lease on life, hopefully he’ll be around for many years to come. I’m sure that will make Kim extremely happy. Ha ha.
Years ago, I wrote a blog post about a time that I needed Blackjack to act like a real cat and how he utterly failed me. Here is a link to that if you are interested in reading how worthless he is at being a true cat: You're Worthless, Cat!
As this year ends and 2024 begins, I hope you accomplished great things in 2023 and have big plans for the new year. I know I did and that I do.
After I finish preparing for the comedy show I have to do in two weeks, I will be tackling novel number seven with all my attention and energy, so look for me to be sharing pieces of that with my paying subscribers by the end of January. If you’re not yet a paying subscriber, consider becoming one now.
Paying subscribers, read on for something I wrote about Benjamin Franklin.
Until next time and next year.
Tammy Marshall
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