Bilbo

 

 

I got a phone call from the lady who worked at the vets.  A litter of kittens were on death row, and she had managed to save four of the kittens, by getting them homes.  Two remained, and the vet would be coming tomorrow for his weekly visit.  She wanted to know did I want one of the last two, and she was prepared to take the other.  In a moment of weakness I said yes, and this started a relationship with a very special little creature.  He was just a tabby kitten, nothing special.  I brought him home, and of course we had to name him.  He was an endearing little fellow, and everyone had just read “The Hobbit” and “Lord of the Rings”, so Bilbo he became.  All went well for the first few days, and he settled in well.  Then came the first of many disasters in his life.  Unknown to my daughter, who was in the rocker/recliner, he got himself in behind the chair.  In an attempt to get out, he tried to go under it.  Yes, you can imagine what happened, he was badly hurt.  My daughter was horrified at what she thought she had done, and took a long time to forgive herself.  He was still alive, though obviously not well, but I really didn’t expect him to pull through.  I didn’t realise what a fighting spirit he had.  We made him up a bed in the cat carrier, to cushion him from further injury, and to keep him warm, and set off for the vets in Mudgee, three quarters of an hour away.  My daughter watched him like a hawk all the way, she expected him to die on her, but he was still with us when we arrived.  We went straight in, as we had rung before hand, and the vet reckoned he needed treatment straight away.  He examined him, and said, nothing is broken, but his little head is badly bruised.  There could be brain damage.  He gave us the choice of putting him to sleep straight away, or giving him a cortisone injection to reduce the swelling, and see what transpired.  I asked the vet for the cortisone injection.  I wanted to at least give him a go, seeing we had saved him from death row.  The vet wanted to keep him in over night, to see how he went, so we left him there, and returned the next day.  They said they were surprised at how well he had spent the night, and he was eating again.  So home we went, and back to normal gradually.  He got back into the swing of things, and the other cats we had at the time used to play with him very carefully, they were very gentle with him.  Then after a couple of months I noticed he didn’t appear to be growing, and the other cats had stopped playing with him.  I also noticed he was getting very fussy over his food, and only wanted mince.  So back to the vet, and a large round of tests.  The result was kidney damage…..he was only 3 months old by this stage…and it was likely he would always be small, and he wouldn’t live more than a couple of years, but the good news was we could give him treatment to make him feel better.  So he had his first injection, and a course of tablets.  He hated the injection, and he wasn’t really fussed on the tablets either.  He also had to go on a special diet as well, he was NOT allowed to live on just mince.  He wasn’t happy about that either!  So he was a bit cranky when I brought him home………..and when I picked him up to give him a tablet, small as he was, he growled at me!  Every time I picked him up for a tablet he growled at me.  Even after the tablets were finished, if anyone picked him up, he growled.  This pattern stayed throughout his life.

 

All went well for a while, and then he would disappear and reappear after a while, and we had no idea where he was going.  And the cats had stopped playing with him, so I thought, trouble ahead.  I’d better find out what he’s doing.  So I watched him one day, and saw him disappear UNDER the fridge.  When I investigated further I found him curled up next to the motor, where it was warm.  And this was the middle of summer!  This was really odd…. I rang the vets and discussed it with them, and we worked out he wasn’t eating enough…..he was still being terribly fussy about his food, and him parking himself next to the motor was actually keeping his system going till the next feed.  He was actually suffering from extremely low blood sugar.  And then I found him almost lifeless….in a little heap on the other side of the house to the kitchen.  He didn’t have enough energy to get to the fridge to warm himself up, and he collapsed.  I turned on the heating pad that I use for the roos, when they are really little or sick, but I knew I had to do something while that warmed up, because it would take a while, and I just felt we didn’t have long.  It was a hot day, so I carried him outside and lay him in the sun.  He needed warming right through, and that was the only thing I could think of.  I checked on him every 10 or 15 minutes, and kept turning him over.  On around the third turn, as I turned him over he growled.  Ah, I thought, bingo!  Life has returned.  I left him there, and rushed inside for some stuff the vet had sent me, an appetite improver.  The idea was I was supposed to put it on his food, and it would give him extra vitamins etc, but he wouldn’t eat it like that I had found…..typical.  But if I put it on his upper lip, he would lick it all off.  So that’s what I did then, to give his appetite a kick start now I had him warmed up.  He sat up, and licked it off, glaring at me, and then I took him into the kitchen and presented him with some food, which he ate, reluctantly.  I had to watch him carefully for several days, till he got enough food in his system.  Several times his blood sugar dropped, and I had to go through the procedure again.  I even had to get up during the night, to feed him, until it was all sorted out.  Fortunately this didn’t last long, and his system picked up, and I noticed the other cats playing with him again, so I knew this crisis was past.  I was sure there would be others…..

 

So we got into the routine….once a month, off to the vets, for his injection for his kidneys.  He would hide of course, he knew when he had to go, but I would usually find him next door, gazing into their outdoor pool at their goldfish, who were just about bigger than him…..  Then of course he would growl at the vet as she gave him his injection.  Back home we would come, and he would spring from the cat carrier, and rush into hiding for several hours….then stalk back to the house, still in a bad temper, but wanting to be fed, and of course growling if he was picked up.

 

Of course, we used to pick him up for a cuddle, just to hear him growl, it seemed so funny this tiny little cat acting such a way.  In the mean time, he had decided he wanted to be the top cat.  Of course the others wouldn’t hear of it, he was still a kitten in their eyes.  In fact he never grew past the size of a 3 months old kitten.  But he REALLY wanted to be regarded as an adult, and when the cats played together, he put such a lot of energy into it, and he used to be really frustrated by the fact the others didn’t take him seriously.  One day he was so annoyed, that while playing with one of the cats, he just stopped, and walked round the back of him, and bit him!

 

By this time, Bilbo was around 6 months old, and the time for desexing was approaching.  I discussed it with the vet and she said we should still go ahead with it, despite his lack of size, because it sounded as though he was already exhibiting antisocial behaviour consistent with awful old tom cats….so the day arrived, and in he went.  I picked him up when it was over, and the vet told me she had had to use microsurgery on him……his little crown jewels were so tiny.

 

One day I came home from down the street to find him lying out in the back room, on the dog’s bed, with his little paw outstretched, and stuck in the curtain.  It looks as though he stretched and got his claws stuck, and he couldn’t retract them.  He was glaring, and of course, as I picked him up to fix his claws, he growled again!  Being so small, everything was doubly difficult for him, but it never stopped him trying.  He certainly had a lot of get up and go.  When it got close to him to go for his injection, he would get grumpier, and sleep more, but after the visit to the vet, he would be firing on all six cylinders again.

 

This round of activity continued till he was around 12 months old, and one day he just disappeared.  We searched everywhere for him, and of course we didn’t find him.  No sign at all.  I talked to the vet about it later, and asked did she think his kidneys had packed it in, and she said no.  She thought he would have lasted longer than that, but thought that seeing the weather was hot , it was likely he had been bitten by a snake, and because of the state of his kidneys, death would have been instant.

 

We mourned him of course, but we knew we had been blessed to have him for as long as we did, and treasured the memories of his short, but fruitful life.