(by Rosemary Clarke)
One day in late November last year I was digging out a box of books from my late mum, trying hard to put many of them in the 'get rid of' pile which was growing ever bigger. I heard a small sharp scrabbling noise at the bottom; I thought it was a mouse; that was all I needed! Carefully I moved the books aside and peered down...to find a tiny black kitten trying to find its way out of the place where its mother had put it. I gently lifted it out and sat it on my lap it just sat there with no idea where it was at all. Later on when the mother came back, a feral cat, she disowned him after trying to teach him to hunt and having him sit there in a daze: then came the seizures. He started to shake uncontrollably and shudder around the room as if he were some sort of macabre windup toy and when it stopped he would scream, just once but so pitifully it hurt just to hear him. I became a surrogate mother and, after taking him to the vets found he had epilepsy which had left him almost blind and brain-damaged. Well, one brain-damaged creature to another I decided to help and pronounced a lockdown; he couldn't go out of the house without me and I would act as his eyes until he got used to using his other senses.
The vet had said that he would have many other seizures but doses of penicillin and steroid injections would lessen them, so much so that now he hardly has one a week. Jojo, that's what I've called him, has now learnt to get through the cat flap with the other cats and can sit quite happily in the garden without me but I still watch through the window. He has a long way to go yet but let's hope that one day he can be an independent cat and the lockdown can cease; I don't care, he's given me something else to think of instead of my worries and mum's death so I would say it's good news all round! Here's to the JoJo's of this world, may they thrive and prosper and teach all of us that it's not so bad being us.
© Copywrite of author
What a amazing story Rosemary. Beautifully told, it touched my heart. It seems to me that Jojo was sent with you in mind because caring for it so lovingly has taken your mind off your own sorrows. I do hope the poor little thing continues to improve. Many years ago, we adopted a feral kitten. At first it was so fierce that we could only handle it by wearing gardening gloves but eventually it became a loving pet. Unfortunately it had a nasty habit of hunting baby rabbits and dumping them on our doorstep.They mostly died but one survived. However, it too, had suffered brain damage. and could only hop once or twice without falling over. It became our house rabbit because it would never have survived in the wild. It was a dear little thing that was never caged but had the run of the house.
ReplyDeleteAll the best, Janet