Basil vs Car

We knew it was not a good sign when we arrived home from our school's Harmony Day Picnic at 7 o' clockish and there was no kitty tripping us up and demanding his dinner. And when he still wasn't home by bedtime, after I'd called and called, (he always comes when we call him, always) the alarm bells were well and truly ringing. I must have been sleeping with my ears straining for the sound of him, because at 1.30am I heard his meow outside our bedroom window, the sort of cranky meow he'd make if a cat he didn't like had come too close.

Fixit and I leapt up to see, and there he was underneath the window, but he was not jumping in and there was something wrong-looking about his back half.

So I gently brought him inside and put him on the sheepskin rug while we figured out what to do, where to take him. His legs and back half were wet, he had some blood on his jaw and he couldn't move his legs. He'd obviously dragged himself home over rain soaked terrain (including up a step to get himself under our window) and then called us. The bravery and determination of this breaks my heart.

By 2am with some hot tea in a leakproof cup, I was on the road to Essendon where there is a 24hour vet hospital. They checked him out and told me it looked like a broken pelvis but that at that point in time the main thing they had to treat him for was shock, his body temperature was dangerously low. He was given painkillers, iv fluids and put in a hot box. I drove home, thankful that I knew where he was and what had happened, but still unsure about whether he'd make it. I crawled into bed at around 3.30am.

By morning he had stabilised enough for me to go and get him and transfer him to the care of our local vet. He looked much better when I arrived and kept trying to move his useless back half around, displaying what the Vet referred to as Burmese rage when his body wouldn't co-operate. I took this a a good sign.

...


In the middle of writing this the vet rang. Here's what. He needs specialist surgery, and our vet can't actually do that. They're pretty sure his bladder is okay but if it's not I gather specialist surgery would be a waste of time and money. He needs to go back to the hospital because he requires 24 hour care and our vet doesn't offer that. I wish I hadn't moved him now. Shit. He's in a lot of pain. I don't really know what to do. Fixit is on his way home anyway.