I woke up this morning to an unpleasant shock.

Usually, when I go downstairs, I’m greeted by our cat. He’s either on the back garden when I open the blinds, or is waiting inside the utility room. He’s almost always awake and ready for his breakfast. This morning he wasn’t there when I opened the blinds, but as it had been raining I wasn’t surprised, and when I opened the door into the utility room he was laid in his bed, waking at the sound of my entry. At first I wondered about this slightly unusual occurence, but then my eyes alighted on a stain on the edge of his bed and, swiftly after, some blood on his forepaw and a lot of blood around his nose and mouth.

Bending down to get a closer look I could see he’s suffered some sort of injury. My first though was that he’d been in a fight with another cat, or perhaps a bigger animal. Whatever the case, I was alarmed and quickly grabbed my phone to ring the vet’s out-of-hours service. I was able to get an appointment for him to be seen at 10am. While his face, particularly his lower lip, looked to be a mess, he was walking around and not limping. He was very subdued though and showed no interest in being fed.

He was quite vocal in his cat-carrier during the car ride to the vets, which in a way was a relief. He never likes trips in the car like this and the fact he was making is displeasure known was much better than silence. After arriving at the vets – due to Covid restrictions – we had to wait outside and explain to a member of staff what the problem was. Someone then came and collected him from us and told us to wait and that they would call on my wife’s mobile phone when the vet had assessed his condition. After a 15-minute wait, we got the call. The vet was under the belief that he had been struck by a car as he had some damage to his claws and pads which is a common injury in such events. He looked to have taken a knock to his head which raised concern about injuries to his bones -perhaps a fractured jaw – but the vet was confident that this wasn’t the case. He’d not shown too much distress or signs of extreme discomfort when being examined and his reactions, alertness, and vitals were all good. He had a nasty graze on his cheek and lower lip and a bruised tongue however.

The vet advised a dose of pain relief and anti-inflamatory, along with further liquid pain medication for us to administer from the next day – although we were to watch and make sure he was eating and drinking. Because of the discomfort with his tongue and mouth, there is a chance he may need to go back to the vets to be tube-fed is he can’t manage to eat and drink himself. While I’ve not seen him eat anything yet (he’s been asleep most of the day) he did have a decent drink of water from his bowl earlier, which was good to see.

We’ve decided to restrict him to the house this evening (and dug his old litter tray from the garage!) so that we know he’s safe overnight. Fingers crossed he will be on the mend soon. It’s at times like these when you realise just how much these little friends weedle their way into your life and heart.

Not much of a photography post today I suppose, but it is what it is.

Cats can be worries
Attempting to use nine lives
In their adventures

Yashica Mat 124G, close-up #1 lens & Ilford HP5+. Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°.

Taken on 10 January 2020