Not Dougal

This is not Dougal, but another tabby cat that looks similar to him.

Continued from yesterday. My vet rang this morning and said Dougal had settled as well as could be expected with his injury and that there was no internal bleeding. The other problem that might occur was that he might not be able to urinate; this would mean that the spinal column was crushed and there would be no other option, but to put him to sleep. However, there were no such problems and my vet had spoken to a specialist.

That left us with two options, one was to cage him in a carrier the size of a cat carrier for three months and hope that the spine healed. One false move and the spine was likely to cause more damage, which by then would be irreparable. The other option was major surgery to pin his spine together.

We collected him from one veterinary hospital in Bishops Stortford in Hertfordshire and I drove very carefully to another specialist unit, Dick White Referrals, which is in a village called Six Mile Bottom, near Newmarket in Suffolk; we live in Essex!

We left him there to have an MRI and for the surgery to be carried out this afternoon. He has some damage to his right back leg and there is a thirty percent chance that he will not gain the full use of it. Animals, especially cats are very adaptable and the vet thinks he will cope well.

We are not allowed to visit him for three days and he has to stay there for a week. We have not yet heard how the operation has gone, the vet will ring this evening and I will post his progress over the days and hopefully you will see Dougal again in my journal, which after all is about my daily life.

The cat in the picture was on a poster hanging on the wall in the reception area of the hospital where Dougal is staying and looks very similar to Dougal. The staff were amused when I asked if I could take a photograph for blip, but were quite happy for me to do so.

Post Script
While I was typing this the vet phoned to say 'your little boy is fine'. It seems the operation went well although after the anaesthetic he is a little groggy.