Dulcie does it again!
posted in Cat Stories |At the grand old age of 14 years, you really would think she’d know better, but Dulcie, as ever, likes to keep us on our toes.
Having used up 3 of her nine lives in quick succession in her first 12 months, we thought that all the trauma of her early years was behind us. How wrong we were.
It all started 6 weeks ago on a cold night in February. Dulcie had followed her normal routine and been out for about an hour before bedtime. When I opened the door to let her in, she rushed upstairs, all was not well.
The right side of her head and ear were covered in blood and there were tufts of fur poking out all over. Our first thought was that she had been attacked by another animal.
We did our best to clean her up, but she wasn’t in the mood for being messed with, so in the end we just satisfied ourselves that the bleeding had stopped, and let her sit quietly whilst we decided what to do.
Peter felt a trip to the vet would simply add to her trauma, I wasn’t so sure, but as he is usually right in these situations, (he uses his head whereas I let my heart take over) I agreed.
We took it in turns to sit with her that night. Peter sat up until 4am and then I took over. I spent the night in the spare bed, not daring to move, with Dulcie laying next to me. In the morning I thought she seemed a bit better, but that didn’t last long.
She soon disappeared into the darkest, most inaccessible corner of the spare bedroom, and that’s where she stayed. All morning, all afternoon and all night. I took her food and water, but she didn’t touch it.
At bedtime, I found myself laying on the bed talking lovingly to a dark corner of the bedroom. Then Peter told me he had just met her downstairs in the hall, so at least she was up and about.
The next day she was a little bit better again, and that’s how the next days and weeks continiued. A little bit of progress each day, that was until 2 weeks ago, when she developed an abscess on her cheek.
It must have been so painful, she looked so miserable it broke my heart. It burst 4 times in the next week, and each time we bathed it to get rid of the badness inside. Now 6 weeks on I feel I can say she is better, apart from a bare patch on her face.
With hindsight, we don’t think it was another animal, she was more likely clipped by a car. That being the case she has been a very lucky girl for the fourth time in her life.
One day when I have more time, I’ll tell you Marney’s story. Sadly she wasn’t as lucky as Dulcie has been.
