It was with some trepidation that I answered the call from the vets on Tuesday morning, given how ill Ekanath had been when we saw him the day before. However, I was quickly put at ease by the vet who assured me that Ekanath was a little better. After we had left his temperature had dropped a little, as had his breathing rate, and he no longer seemed to be in pain. Overnight he had eaten and slept a little and he was bright and as cheerful as one can expect of a cat in the vets. Especially a cat who is having his temperature taken every few hours (if you know how they take a cats temperature you will already know why that is an effect on their cheery disposition!). However, they did feel that they might need to fit a valve in his chest to tap the fluid buildup. We gave them permission to go ahead (Another £400 to his already significant bill!) and agreed to delay our daily visit until 4 pm instead of going in at 1 PM as we usually do since he would be in surgery then.
When we arrived at 4, we were greeted by a smiling nurse. There was good news. Firstly, Ekanath was looking brighter again. Secondly, the lab cultures had finally come back and the bacteria causing the infection is susceptible to the antibiotics they were using. That being so they expected to see a marked improvement in him by the weekend. Thirdly, before his scheduled surgery they had run another X-ray and discovered that there was no longer enough fluid in the chest to make the surgery worthwhile. Instead, a continuation of his diuretics and antibiotics would see the job done, so they hadn't needed to put his poor little body through more surgery. Better still, they had removed his rubber chest drain under a local anaesthetic and he had let them with only mild grumbling! We were warned that he had been moved to an isolation room because his cage was bigger again but the rest of the room was smaller and that we might find it cramped with the four of us in there (Ekanath, Marie and I and the nurse). Actually, it wasn't too bad, although we did have to do a certain amount of shuffling around one another.
Ekanath was overjoyed to see us, more so when we opened his cage and he could come out. He came over and head rubbed us both, spending some time being affectionate before deciding to have a bit of a look round the room. His exploration was cut short when he realised he needed to use the cat litter and got back into his cell and climbed into the fresh litter tray. From our viewpoint, it quickly became evident that we knew something he didn't - that being that while all of his paws were in the litter tray - his butt was hanging over it. By the time he discovered this he had already unleashed poop-pocalypse all over the blanket lining the floor of his cell. He was not impressed.
He frantically tried to bury it, in the end folding his blanket over it and leaping out of the cell, staring at me as if to say, "Monkey Buttler! I appear to have pooped the bed! Do something! For the love of Bast man DO SOMETHING!" Fortunately for us both the veterinary nurse stepped in and took control of the situation. The vets let us stay for well over an hour, and after leaving we visited friends who happen to live across the road from the veterinary hospital. We spent a few hours with them and came home, confident that our little pal was finally on the road to recovery!
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