Ein Altes Gebet

Had I always sought Thy blessing,
All my sins to Thee confessing,
Lord, from Thee no thought concealing,
All in childlike faith revealing,
O then might I dread no morrow,
Gladness would dispel each sorrow.
If swift as light I took my flight
And left the earth behind me,
I ne'er could wander from Thy sight,
O Father, Thou wouldst find me.
And though I sleep in oceans deep
In realms unfathomed hide me
Thou o'er me faithful watch dost keep
Who dost protect and guide me.

--author unknown

Jake the Cat...and the start of his 9th life!

It all started when Jake started peeing all over the apartment. We figured he was just marking his territory - Jake is primarily an outdoor cat, and we had kept him inside since moving a month before. He continued to pee on things and we were getting pretty pissed at him. We started introducing him to the outdoors, and the day he peed on the couch was the day that we first kicked him out for an overnight stay.

The next evening, we let him back in, figuring he'd learned his lesson...and that's when I noticed how weird he was acting. He cried at me when I picked him up, and I thought he was scared from being outside for the first long period of time. Then I set him down and saw him accidentally 'sprinkle'! I then took him straight to the litter box and chucked him in there so he could go in the appropriate place. I watched him for nearly 5 min - he was trying and trying to go and couldn't!

He gave up and went to the living room to lie down. I went to feel his belly to see if there was swelling of any kind, and realized he was in pain. That's when I noticed him licking a spot on his arm; upon closer investigation, I realized he was smoothing the fur over a huge gash in his arm!

At this point I began calling emergency vets, panicked. No one would answer, so the best we could do was rush him to our regular vet at 7am the next morning.

Initially, we were told he just needed some antibiotics, and the wound closed up. After they sedated him to stitch up his injury (which we still have no idea how he got!), they felt his bladder and realized that he was completely unable to go to the bathroom on his own.

Over the course of the next 5 days, Jake was hooked up to an IV to flush out his system (see the awesome missing patch of fur on his paw where they hooked it in), and had a catheter inserted so that he could go to the bathroom. I've never seen a cat look so pathetic. After blood work and urinalysis, the vet determined that Jake had developed blockage in his bladder which prevented him from using the bathroom. Sparing the gross details (I could barely stand it without vomiting the first time, I have no desire to reminisce)...this is a very serious condition for a cat. Left untreated, he would have died shortly.

Jake was quite the handful at the vet, even in the critical condition he was in. They made him wear one of those plastic cones on his head to prevent him from gnawing at his stitches, the IV, and the catheter. They said it is normal for a cat to get that cone off perhaps once...Jake had it off every single morning! In addition, he managed to pull out his own catheter, undo his own stitches (which they then replaced with STAPLES just in case) and figured out how to open the kennel doors. They had to put a lock on his cage door to keep him in!!!

He is home now, and enjoying the luxuries of sleeping on the couch and eating the yummy special diet the vet sent him home with. We expect he will make a full recovery, but imagine that this is the start of his 9th and final life...Let's hope it lasts a long time.