It was simply unbelievable!
I was at work on last Tuesday, so a week ago today, and it was around 16:00.My mobile phone vibrated and I answered it.
Was this Rosemary Laurence and did I have a cat named Bongo?
Now this has happened many times before and so I gave my stock answer.
"You are probably looking at Bingo. What colour is his collar?"
But the female voice was quite insistent.
"No! It's definitely Bongo!".
I told her I had two cats that were the same colour, chocolate and vanilla and that I had lost one and Bingo is the remaining cat.
She asked, "When did you last see Bingo?".
"This morning", I replied.
"Well this cat has been injured for quite a while and we've been told his name is definitely Bongo!".
A glimmer of hope then. "How do you know his name is Bongo and how did you get this number?".
Gemma explained then, that she was from the RSPCA and that the cat had been handed in to her after a lady had been feeding it for a month. Only on Tuesday gone had she managed to lure the cat into the shop, cut its collar which had become embedded under its arm, grab him and hand him over to the RSPCA. Theyhad run a check on its chip and this had led her to me.
Well, to say I was overjoyed is the understatement of the year. What a Christmas present! Gemma was going to take him to the vets in Portslade and give me a call back. Later she called back to say that the vet had seen Bongo and referred him to the vet hospital in Kemp Town where he would need an operation (procedure) to heal the pussy, smelly, deep, festering wound left by the collar cutting in under the arm of his front left paw. It sounded disgusting!
Depending on how you look at it I was fortunately or otherwise on my way to the philosophy Christmas event which was Shakespeare in Love at Raleigh Hall near Hove station. I wanted to see my boy and accepted there was nothing I could do to speed his recovery and life must go on.
So I got home at 18:30, and called Andrew, another student who lives nearby and who sometimes offers to give me a lift to class. I nipped upstairs to see Lauren (now pregnant) to ask if they could feed the cats on Thursday night and Friday morning as I would be visiting Linda and Malika in Canning Town and Peckham and happily told them my news.
Wednesday I was asked if the vet hospital could go ahead with the procedure and I agreed. Somewhere between then and Friday a number of things happened and I am not sure in which order.
I was advised that when Bongo finally came home he would need to stay in a dog cage for around two weeks to stop him from moving and disrupting the injury fixed by the procedure and two protect him from Bingo (his brother) and Molly (his replacement)!
I now have to think in terms of three cats instead of two and whilst my home is a shrine
Bingo and Molly, it is geared up for two cats as opposed to three! I now know from experience that the third cat takes everything up a level, from cleaning, petting, feeding to expense and more. It's almost a full time job in itself! But I love it!
I called the insurers and explained the situation thinking I would insure Bongo and indeed I set the wheels in motion and had the paperwork sent to me but then I got to thinking. Bongo needs the insurers right now and they are not there for him. Further more if he
gets another injury on the same arm he is not covered! They want to take the money they paid out for him and won't extend his cover and let me back pay. I thought about the insurance I had paid for all three cats since July 2007 versus the return for Bongo having gone missing and my current insurance and decided then and there to cancel all three
insurances the next day and open a bank account for Bingo, Molly and Bongo. It may be rash and I'm open to review next year but right now, with Bongo's expenses burning a hole my pocket this is the way forward.
I looked on eBay for dog cages and phoned a couple of pet shops and in the end it turned out that the local pet shop offered a suitable cage and mattress with a discount at the best value and I asked them to put it by so I could collect it on Friday around 17:00 just before Adam from upstairs offered to drive me to the cat hospital in Kemp Town to bring my boy home.
During conversation with the local pet shop they informed me that it was the Fabric Shop along the high street that had found him and I immediately got on the phone to them.
Turns out the Fabric shop is next to Greggs, the bakers, and between them both they had been feeding Bongo for a month and the rest is history.
And so Wednesday came and went and Bongo had the procedure and was doing fine. He is a very affectionate cat and purring! Now if I remember Bongo of old, you couldn't get him to say boo to a goose and even though he is a big cat he was the most frightened thing. So if anything good is to come of this, it is that perhaps through being starved of affection he has learned how to love people and that is a good thing.
So on Friday, I collected the cage and put it together and then knocked for Adam and off we went to the vets hospital. Claire gad a chat with me advising he was on antibiotics to be taken morning and night and that the wound was unpleasant to look at. She wasn't wrong! A searig scar right across his under arm with a lump of extra skin from who knows
where and a rubber drain sticking out of the cut. He seemed fine though just loving all the attention.
He got into the cat basket easily enough (he always was more mellow than Bingo) and went into his cage when we finally returned home. There was the anticipated stand off between all the cats and Bingo started attacking Molly, I guess not sure where his allegiances lay, having been the constant force between the other two cats.
Well, I wasn't having that, especially as it was usually Bingo I was protecting from Molly. I'm please to say it didn't last long and they are so back to being their cuddly wuddly two-some that they always were.
Bongo's cage is covered with a colourful blanket which is pulled around him at night tine to stop him from being overwhelmed by the outside.
The snarling between all cats seems to have stopped.
Bongo is a pleasure to feed as unlike the other two, he eats anything that is put down in front of him. (The vet once called him obese and advised putting him on a diet!) Of course he doesn't have the luxury of being able to sup from the food bowls belonging to other cats elsewhere.
I was advised that Bongo should see the vet at least twice a week and I am allowed to bring him to the local vets. Each visit is money and when not on a Saturday either annual leave away from Christmas or hopefully working from home as I've got to take him to the vets at 8:00 on Thursday and then again on Saturday which means no over night stay on Friday for Jaz's birthday.
I don't mind. Just don't want to piss work off us all. It's lovely having all three. I just want to sing and give praise the whole time!
Peace
Cat Mama
Sent from my iPhone
2009-12-08
