March Thaw weather arrived on schedule. I went into town. The news I heard, apart from what was about private individuals, was still about Hurricane Helene. Several people were still sawing up the trees that had been uprooted last October. Some people had gone to Asheville, following the hurricane's path through Tennessee, to be good disaster tourists. Roads and bridges and the larger part of the little town of Unicoi, Tennessee, have yet to be rebuilt. An appeal has been made for gently used books to restore Unicoi's library. And then, this weekend, the first (or second?) storm of spring was rough enough to bring back memories.
I heard nothing about the cheerful chap who delivers Serena's Pure Life water. He still uses a "smartphone," issued by his employers, and it seems to be out of use. "Smartphones" seem to have been designed to slip down between or into boxes in the back of a delivery truck. At first I wondered whether he knew that Serena is still alive. Now I'm wondering about him. The customers still want him on his job, because he does better work than young men, but he's not young. I had bought an extra case of bottled water during the winter, so we have enough to drink for another week or two. The store employs other deliverymen. The white-haired one will be missed.
I came home, put out some kibble and the first few tablespoons of water off the top of a bottle, and sat on the porch with the cats. There were three of them: Serena, and little Drudge (he looks pretty large under his long coat, but he's still a half-grown kitten), and another one. The third cat had a bright red-orange tabby coat, a little stub of a tail, and an insolent manner. It could only be the stray tom I call Trumpkin because he is orange, loud, and annoying and he refuses to go home when told to go home. But it hardly looked like Trumpkin. It was gaunt; every bone and muscle showed even through its thick Manx coat, and it was coughing, bleary-eyed. It looked as if it might have panleukopenia--but it's not natural panleukopenia that's killed several neighborhood cats this winter. It's something little Drudge has been able to avoid while sharing food and water with the cats who've died of it. Wrymouth Calhoun was in the neighborhood, just before dawn on Saturday morning.
This post is for Trumpkin's owner, whoever that is and whatever the little guy's real name is. Your tomcat did not catch a natural virus from our Silver (who, if she's living, is missed at home). He has the same trouble she and Serena have had. He might easily die. He might still recover but he will probably need human help to survive.
The bobtailed tomcat has been poisoned by the same person who creeps around at night loosening parts of roofs and gates, damaging locks, breaking water lines, fouling water, trampling flowers, breaking fences, and generally trying to make people feel that living in their homes was not worth the trouble. Wrymouth Calhoun is that person. He's admitted it. He wants everyone else to give up and go away so he can get their land, cheap, and sell it at a profit. He is related to one family in the neighborhood by birth, and another one by marriage, so nobody wanted to see it, but he is a sociopath and needs to be in an institution. His recklessness with chemicals ought to have been investigated as a factor in at least two untimely deaths, one unaccountably serious injury, and some unexplained chronic illness in our neighborhood--and in the death of his parents, brother, sister, wife, and child, all within ten years, two within one week. If you can get a vet to examine a blood or saliva sample from your cat, you may be able to help Wrymouth get the sort of care his one surviving brother is obviously not able to provide him.
Good luck finding a vet who's prepared to do those tests. The main reason why Wrymouth has been able to do as much harm as he's done is that nobody would expect a grown-up, retired adult who was once considered intelligent to do any of it--least of all poisoning cats.
Meanwhile, you need to bring the cat inside. He will be losing great quantities of water. You will want to set out plenty of water for him, but he may lose the ability to drink from a bowl. He may be super-sensitive to pain and may scream or fight when touched. Minimize touch if that happens; don't take his sudden hostility personally. He may be feverish, or his body temperature may drop and he may be cold. Keep him warm, anyway.
There is no cure for panleukopenia and there's probably not one for intentional poisoning with a chemical that replicates the effects of panleukopenia. What a veterinary hospital will do is keep the cat hydrated and check the electrolyte balance in his blood. You can do this at home. You will need a 10cc syringe--the one the vet gave you with his last worm treatment, say.
You also need a bottle of activated charcoal capsules. Wal-Mart sells these; they'll be somewhere in the vitamin section. Take a clean cup, hold a capsule over it, and pop the capsule apart. The charcoal powder will fall to the bottom of the cup. Fill the cup with water. Stir. Draw up a syringe full of this solution.
Even if the cat has taken medicine from a syringe before, he may be feeling too sick to swallow. Pop a couple of clean sacks or blankets around him, or a heavy jacket you can clean afterward, to secure his legs under him. I usually hold a cat by the back of the neck and place the syringe behind the fangs, angled toward the back of the mouth, through the row of short carnassial teeth behind the fangs. When sure the syringe is in place, inject about 2cc at a time. Give the cat time to swallow each mouthful before injecting the next one.
Cats are capable of "mixed feelings," though it's hard to imagine what that actually feels like to them. A cat who has had a dose of charcoal and felt it doing the cat good may know it needs another dose but still not enjoy the treatment. Persevere.
Repeat as necessary. As long as he's coughing, vomiting, refusing food, or passing bodywastes that seem abnormal, give charcoal once a day, plain water once or twice. (If able to drink water, he will probably be very thirsty.) If his movements seem weak, stiff, or spastic, let him drink plain chicken broth or fish broth from the can, to restore electrolytes. Cats who survive panleukopenia survive because they build complete immunity. There is no need to overuse charcoal.
It does not take long for charcoal to adsorb poisons and wash them out of the body. (The trouble is that charcoal will carry out nutrients, too.) After just a few doses the cat will still be ill, but much improved. He may want lots of food to restore lost flesh--try to do this slowly. He will probably want to go out and mark his territory, but will soon be tired and need a warm place to rest for several hours. Rest is good. If he's like my Serena, he will want to overdo the activity and have setbacks.
Recovery will take several of his days and I don't know how complete it will be, but, like most things about "owning" a pet cat, it won't take much of your time or money. A day or two of giving charcoal solution and water through a syringe, and he'll probably be able to drink water and eat food again.
Waiting may allow symptoms to worsen. As with real panleukopenia, it's possible for a cat to go so far down with this disease that nothing can bring it back.
Setbacks may occur if he becomes tired or stressed, or is exposed to more toxic chemicals. He may become more sensitive to chemicals than he was before. He needs exercise, needs to rebuild lost muscle, but watch that he doesn't overdo it. Walking around your yard is probably good for him. Playing with sticks and strings is good if he's still interested. Walking as far as my house might be harmful.
He needs company--as in another cat. Try to adopt one who has already had the virus that is not what he has, whether the vet called it "enteritis" (a mild case), "parvo," "distemper," or panleukopenia, which depends on how ill the cat was; they're all the same virus. She should be immune for life, which is good because your cat has probably had the virus and might be shedding it. Many cats like to be the only pet in the household. Yours does not. He will wander about, crying from loneliness, and probably annoy someone and possibly be hurt, if he doesn't have a cat friend at home. He is still interested in sex, but he's more interested in company, hanging around my cats when there are no immediate possibilities of sex.
Your cat may or may not be truly bisexual, but I've seen him at least try to have sex with a gentle male cat who didn't fight with him. In animals this is often a challenge or dominance display, more like schoolboys saying "You won't fight; you're 'gay'" than like serious solicitation. Trumpkin is primarily interested in females. The ideal companion for him would be a spayed female. Silver, if she's still alive, is not spayed and shouldn't be; her body, like Serena's, resists glyphosate poisoning and other things by storing toxins in the reproductive system and producing non-viable kittens. A cat you rescue from a shelter will be spayed. Same dramas, no kittens.
I like the little guy's determination, anyway, and hope you can reach a complete cure and enjoy the cat's full natural lifespan with him. If it were panleukopenia, cats who survive one bout with that usually have good immune systems and long lives. Since it's poison, who knows. I don't think it's good for Trumpkin to be hanging out here and commuting back and forth in all kinds of weather, but I wish him well. In case you have not noticed yet, he's not a normal cat. He could be an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime pet for you. I hope he is.
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