Today is Ekanath's 1 year Cataversary. It is exactly 1 year since we met him and he came to live with us.
It has been a roller coaster of a year and we almost lost him twice.
The first time was when he had an intestinal blockage. He fell ill, and we had booked an appointment for the vets, then he threw up a massive amount of fur and skin – some fur was his but most was that of a small rodent he had eaten and which had lodged in his digestive tract.
I nursed him back to health over the course of 2 weeks, hand feeding him cat soup as it was all he could face, sleeping next to him and comforting him when he was in pain. Eventually he pulled through it and recovered.
That was he first time we almost lost him. The second was much more recently and readers of this blog or my Facebook page will only be too familiar with that. A wound in his shoulder became infected and seemed to respond to treatment. However, unbeknownst to all the infection had tracked inwards to his chest and caused a condition called a Piothorax. A potentially life-threatening illness that put him in the hospital for two months and from which he is still convalescing although his convalescence is almost over and now we are just waiting for his fur to grown back over the multiple surgical sites.
If it had not been for the determination and skill of his vets, Christina and Gemma at Prince Bishop's vets then there is no doubt in my mind that we would have lost him.
Ww would like to thank everyone who helped to raise funds or sent money to help pay for his vets bill in that time. Your generosity has touched us deeply.
While in the hospital Ekanath stole the hearts of the vets and the veterinary nurses alike and now whenever he visits he is greeted warmly by all of his friends there. For everything they did for him, they will always have my deepest thanks – and his.
While he was in the hospital my wife and I made every effort to visit him each day, and except for 2 days when I was too ill to leave my own sickbed (on those days Marie went alone) we were able to. Seeing us each day and knowing that his humans still loved him and had not forgotten him seemed to imbue our little fighter with the spirit, courage and determination to fight on and to cling to life with all claws when so many other cats have lost their fight to this terrible condition.
But it hasn't all been illness and bad news. Ekanath is a charming and endearing cat, all who meet him love him. He has big, warm, friendly eyes and is so gentle and careful. A fun loving little guy there are few things he loves more than spending hours in the woods behind our house or playing with his cat toys or trying to make friends with other cats.
In the time we have had him he has captured our hearts with his good nature, friendliness and funny habits.
For months I did everything for him – I fed and watered him, cleaned his bowls and his cat litter, gave him his medications, nursed him when he was ill, gave him cat treats, played with him and even gave up my side of the bed when he fell asleep across it and I couldn't get in without waking him. Yet his Mam-mams was his favorite. Typical of cats and of children, I'm given to understand.
Unfortunately he is a little highly strung. A remnant perhaps of having had 3 owners in his first 10 months of life. Now he is beginning to appreciate that he has found his forever home, and he is often found by my side or following me around the house.
I recall the day his giant cat tree was delivered, and we built it while he was out, the look of fascination on his face when he came home and saw it for the first time.
I recall all the vets appointments we missed because he spotted us preparing the cat carrier and vanished, seemingly into thin air. We still aren't quite certain where he would hide in those days.
I recall the time he discovered that although he couldn't fit out of the office window which I usually open in the summer, he could lift the latch and swing it wide. Something which surprised us as we watched him run off down the garden path and into the woods. I spent two nights sleeping on the couch in the office with the window open until he came home. That incident lead to his love of the outdoors that has made him incredibly difficult to keep indoors.
I remember the day I spotted him gazing down at me from the top of the bedroom wardrobe and the day I bored some poor old lady in the care home where my grandfather spent his last days by showing her all the photographs of Ekanath I had on my phone until she could take no more and told me she was half blind and couldn't see the pictures anyway before excusing herself from the dinner table and dashing off as fast as her walking frame would carry her.
Today is the one-year anniversary of having brought him home and I awoke this morning to find him asleep on my pillow as close to me as he could be. When he sensed I was awake he opened his eyes, purred and licked my nose before curling one paw around my finger and settling back down to sleep. I can not begin to tell you how that filled my heart with joy.
I think of all the time we have had together, playing with feathers or bird-toys or Valerian mice and catnip bats. Of all the times I have woken to see him hugging my wife's legs as they both sleep, or resting his head on my own leg as if it was a pillow. I recall all the times my wife and I have sung to him to calm him when tablets were to be taken or all the times he woke screaming in the night from the night terrors he used to suffer, and how we would sing him back to sleep and pet him till he calmed down.
I recall standing at the gate, looking out across the farmers fields to the east of our house, trying to see if he was coming home yet only to give up and turn around to see him peering at me from the corner of the fence to the west, a look of curiosity on his face. I recall walking past the woods to hear him suddenly call out to us till we went to look, only for him to be trying to show us some new plant or interesting thing he had found.
Or the time he met his girlfriend, Lagatha, for the first time. The Norwegian forest cat that lives with one of our neighbours. The two have spent hours gazing at each other through the window or patio doors of our neighbour, the photos they would send us of the two cats doing their Romeo and Juliet at each other, separated by glass.
It has been one amazing, terrifying, heartbreaking, wonderful, love filled year and I hope we have many more years with him – maybe with a bit less illness and fewer vets visits, that would be nice!
We love Ekanath with all our hearts and as the months have rolled on it has become apparent that he has grown to love us just as much.
