In June of 2003 a rather large and cheeky tomcat sauntered into our backyard and proceeded to hose down thoroughly several plastic garbage bags of soda cans. I watched him do this (my he was such a handsome boy!) I informed him his spraying time was soon to be nipped in the bud. Two days later, he was trapped and neutered.

I brought him home with a slew of medications for him and took him upstairs. Thankfully, I prepared the room way ahead of time. I let him out of the trap and he raced out and started bouncing off the tables and counters, the walls. He began to climb up to the ceiling and was running laps over my head!

He climbed down the trellis I had over the window and started clawing wildly at the trellis, but it was screwed down firmly in place. He was panting so heavily and so out of control, I was afraid he would stroke out on me. We have a large wire door in front of the quarantine room, and I stepped beyond it, clearing out of the room so he would calm down.

A few hours later, I returned to the room, and he was squashed into a corner. Getting down on my knees, I approached him slowly and his sides were heaving and he was watchful and wary. I stopped right in front of him, and slowly with great care, I reached out and was able to touch the top of his head! I pushed this contact with him for two reasons. One, he is really ill, and two he is wounded. I needed to get medication and water into him quickly.

It took about 3 hours before I was able to scruff him without incident and I syringed water and medication into him, and it all ran out of his mouth. I knew he was in serious trouble then. When I backed off a bit, he once again went ballistic, and ran up the walls and over the top of the wall over the window, clawing madly looking for escape. It broke my heart, he is an old fellow with the scars of the street vividly upon him. His eyes were running yellow drops of pus and again, he was in dire straights.

I went downstairs to call the vet, and we had a conference. He said he would do a farm call first thing in the morning and come out and take blood and run it for me. We both knew that a trip to the vet’s office would kill this poor cat. I hung up and then went upstairs to see him, and discovered, that he finally managed to claw his way through the trellis and he pried open the screen, leaped to the roof then to the ground and was nowhere to be found.

He did come back about a week later, looking so much worse than before. He had been in a fight and his leg was leaking a nasty abcess. He was so dibilitated that I was able to just reach over as he was gobbling his food, scruff his neck and put him in a carrier. I took him upstairs yet again. We had reinforced the trellis over the window. This time, there would be no escape.

It took him a few days to settle and we had him for about 4 months. When my granddaughters came to visit, they were both able to dress him up in doll clothes! He was not amused!

He got out a few weeks later and vanished, only to reappear about 6 months down the line. He came in to eat for a few days and he vanished again. I never saw him after that so I assumed he had either moved on or, being an outside kitty, something had happened to him.

Tonight when I was at the feeder, I saw him again! Once more, he has been in a battle and is so beat up. His eyes are gooky, he is skinny as a pencil. I ran inside to get some canned food talking to God the whole time…”God, can I get him again? Can I scruff him and carry him inside and get him safe and out of this weather?”

I felt, I might be able to do this miracle so while he was eating, I was petting him and asking him if he remembered me. I scruffed him, he did not struggle! I grasped his hind legs to make escape impossible and hustled him into the house. I felt every bone of his body against my chest and I wept for his condition. There was no cat inside the porch enclosure (another miracle) and so I put him inside. Money is tight- but I will call the vet in the morning and get him in to be seen.

I can’t believe, he is here. I honestly thought I would never see him again.

Here he is a few weeks after his neuter from 2003.

And here he is tonight:

Ok here is the skinny (pun intended). Cyclone tested negative for all the nasties. (TYG) After a thorough exam it has been determined that Cyclone is extremely malnourished. Even his eyes have been depleted of the fat cells and they are sunken back into his head. He was also so flea-ridden last night that even with the flea treatment I gave him, he still had fleas all over him, so he was flea-treated again. He was dewormed with a broad dewormer as I had de-wormed him last night for tapes.

He is on Recovery for food and we are waiting a few days to see if the antibiotic will kick in and we start seeing a positive change in this lovely boy. He really is lovely- he just may not look like it right now. The anemia has the vet a bit alarmed- but I have supplements he will get. I also have some powdered deer velvet here that I will start giving him to bump up his immune system.

He was a perfect gentleman at the vet’s office.