I've always seen Pretty Girl roaming around the locality, scouring for food and getting into fights with other cats. I took her for a mischievous cat because of the many times she's snuck into our house and stolen fish. As such, I used to chase her off the property whenever I saw her, thinking she was always up to something.
After I lost Ginger, life seemed meaningless, like there was something missing. I did not want another pet because I was afraid of what would happen if I lost it again. +Michael Anthony Lagoy felt the same way at first, but eventually found a friend in Pretty Girl, who he tried convincing me was actually a very sweet cat. I was hesitant at first, but I decided to approach her anyway.
She did not warm up to me immediately, so I decided to take my time. One afternoon as I was coming out of the house, I saw Pretty Girl sitting under our car. It was one of her favored spots. I figured she was hungry so I ran into the house and fetched her a piece of raw meat from the fridge. She approached me cautiously, grabbed the meat and ran back under the car. So I got her some more meat and she did the same thing. Eventually, she felt comfortable enough to sit next to me. I petted her and instantly realized how long I'd gone without petting Ginger. It was tough. But Pretty Girl turned out to be a very loving cat after all.
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| Pretty Girl |
A few days later, she started coming into my room and though she was cautious, she knew she did not have to fear me. Within a month, she was comfortable enough to be sleeping on my bed (much to my mom's chagrin). I did not feed her regularly as she was a street cat and if I got her too comfortable, her hunting instincts would fade, so though I sometimes fed her, it was more of a treat than anything. She was a really pretty cat, so we called her "pretty girl" out of affection, and I guess the name just stuck.
Cut to last week, Pretty Girl fell really ill. She came in one evening looking tired, and slept. She did not go out the entire night. She slept all night and all day. By the end of the next day, I was starting to get worried. She loved sleeping for sure, but this was abnormal even for her. I feared she was coming down with something. To test this, I tried giving her some fish, but she wouldn't eat any. Now I definitely knew something was wrong.
We agreed to take her to the vet. We wrapped her up in a shawl and tried taking her, but a few steps outside the house, she just jumped out of our reach and ran away. Taking her to the vet seemed unlikely then. Within a few hours, she returned to the house and resumed sleeping. I visited the vet by myself and asked him if there was anything he could give me to help her. The vet said that he could not do much to help her since he can't examine her, but he gave her an antibiotic anyway. Upon reaching home, I gave her the medicine but she spat it all out, and after a few hours, started throwing up. All hope seemed lost.
Ginger spent her last few hours in a taxi ride back and forth the town with us searching everywhere for a capable vet (I had not been introduced to the current vet yet at this point). It was probably not comfortable for her. To avoid making the same mistake, we decided that come morning, if Pretty Girl was feeling worse, we should just leave her be - let her spend her last moments sleeping comfortably. However, if she was hanging on or improving, we would take more drastic measures to get her to the vet. That night seemed like an eternity.
The morning came and Pretty Girl seemed to be slightly better. That was good enough for me. We prepared a cane basket, put her in it and went out to the vet. She struggled at first, but after a while, became quiet. I felt horrible putting her in there while she was sick, but I knew that it was now or never. If she died after I tried helping her, I could at least say I tried everything, but I could not just sit back and let this sickness take her from me. After all, the symptoms seemed extremely familiar to what Ginger had.
We got to the vet and opened the basket. She seemed confused. The vet examined her and told us to hold her while he administered a shot. She did not take it well, but the vet did manage to inject her properly. We put her in the basket again and came home. She meowed a bit on the way, escalating my feeling of guilt. As soon as we got home, we opened the basket and let her calm down a bit before we opened the doors and windows. When she did, we let her go and only hoped for the best.
That evening, she came over and seemed to have improved, but I did not want to jump to conclusions as yet. She did not spend that night in our house. Needless to say, it was another tedious wait. The next morning, she came over and seemed slightly like her old self again. There was no denying that her condition had improved. As the days passed, she recovered and now she's back to her usual self - meowing loudly and going crazy over fish and meat. I shudder to even think of what would have happened had we not taken her to the vet.
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| Pretty Girl today. |
I felt such immense relief at her recovery that it is hard to put into words. I used to chase Pretty Girl off on a whim, but now when sickness threatened to take her away from me, I would not allow it. Now that's what I call irony.
