Handle With Care

My Dear Princess and Dear Fellow,

Today was a really bad day. Both me and Caro were sad.

The cause was Punky who seemed really low after a few days on the up. We couldn't figure it out. Today he spent nearly all day in bed, and when we interacted with him, he was fearful and clearly in discomfort.

No-one likes to see their kitty suffering. 

So we fretted about what to do all day. His state of stress and anxiety suggested to us that we shouldn't take him to the vet. The last time we took him, he was visibly shaking with fear. 

Ditto his pain meds... despite the fact that we don't want to think of him in pain, we were starting to think that the pain meds were doing more harm than good. Catching the little guy to take them was bad enough. Administering them to him was awful. 

We noticed that after we'd scoop him up from a bed to give him drugs, he wouldn't return to that bed but find somewhere else to hide. As Caro said, it felt like we were making it so there was no safe place for him in the house. 

We checked out his wound and it looked ok... there was no smell of infection and his ears were cool so no temperature.

We decided that no course of action was the best action to take. We said we'd leave him 24 hours and see how he was before deciding on another vet visit. 

In the meantime, we were as kind to him as we could be. This included ordering yet MORE chicken tenders. He did venture out to have some - not as much as usual - but at least he ate. He even purred at me as he ate. 

And as you can see, Crashy got in on the action too. Although in this picture he isn't after chicken. He stole some chips which he patted about on the floor. 

He's an orange cat. What more can I say?

Anyway, to spare you further concern, I can tell you that it is now Monday morning and Punky does seem a lot better. We have not given him his medication, we're not stressing him out, and as a result he's eaten breakfast, had a poo and investigated the garden.

He even jumped to the top of his cat tree. 

It was a rough Sunday, but I think if we leave him alone, he'll recover faster. Punky is semi-feral and he HATES being manhandled. So we'll just let him handle it himself.

S.