Bonus time

Jack has had health problems this week and it has been very scary. He is an old boy now at sixteen and a half years old, and he has been on medication for his kidneys for several years and for the last couple of months his back legs have been very weak due to arthritis. However he still seems happy and I have been hoping that he will have a great spring and summer in his garden. He loves his garden.

Last weekend he had a sore eye. This is nothing unusual because he still has fights with other cats and over the years he has had a few infected lumps on his face which have required antibiotics. Or he could have scraped his eye on a twig while going through the hedge. However his eye quickly grew worse and actually started to protrude, and his wee skull looked misshapen. It was Davie who noticed first how bad it was getting. We were going to take him to the vet on Wednesday but on Tuesday evening he looked so ill that we called the vet's emergency number and took him over to the vet school at 11 p.m. I wasn't that impressed. The consulting room was a bit dirty, and the vets, although pleasant, didn't really find anything wrong - I persuaded them to give him an antibiotic injection because this has worked for him in the past. Poor James was exhausted, having been up since 5 a.m. to fly to London.

By the morning Jack looked terrible. His whole head was swollen, his eye was protruding, his mouth was open with his tongue hanging out and he was groaning if he was touched. I took him straight to the vet's before work and we saw a fantastic vet called Gail. She immediately suggested that Jack either has a brain tumour or an abscess behind and just below his right eye. She gave him painkillers straight away (why didn't the vet school do that?) and kept him in to investigate and take biopsies under general anaesthetic. James collected Jack at the end of the day. He was really groggy because he had been pumped full of painkillers and antibiotics, but was no longer groaning with pain. By the time we took him back to see Gail the next day (James came straight from the airport to meet us at the vet's!) there was a remarkable improvement! His eye was properly back in its socket, most of the swelling on his head was gone, and he has been eating and drinking copiously. Gail is still not sure whether it is an abscess or a tumour, but she was surprised and pleased at his progress. 

Jack is not out of the woods yet, it still might be a tumour, in which case we will have a sad decision to make. But actually it would not be difficult because we will be putting Jack's welfare first and we do not intend him to suffer. On the other hand it might be an abscess from which he could recover. The biopsy results are due next week. 

The important thing is that Jack is definitely not suffering just now. He is back to his relaxed and happy self; eating, drinking, grooming himself, lounging around luxuriantly, jumping up on the couches with no difficulty, purring when we pat him. But whatever the results next week, this has reminded us that Jack is definitely on bonus time.