Picture the scene if you will:
It was a summer’s Sunday afternoon, way, way back (about three years ago) before our daughter was born. I was upstairs in our bedroom doing some ironing*. I was happily tackling the mountain of clothes when I heard the most almighty noise from outside. I looked out of the window and saw the dog in the garden that backs on to ours shaking something white and fluffy. The white fluffy thing was yowling, and I had a sudden realisation that it was our cat.
I ran through the house and round to the neighbour’s. I knocked on the door and managed to tell the guy that I thought his dog had our cat. The guy’s hand was bleeding where he had forced his dog’s mouth open, and he told me the cat had run off.
I raced back home to find my boyfriend wondering what the hell was happening. I hadn’t had time to tell him what was going on so as far as he was concerned I had lost my marbles as I ran off, and then the cat came tearing in in a blind panic. I explained what had happened as we checked the cat was ok. His rear right leg was bleeding and he was limping badly.
I phoned the vets to ask what we should do. They said to keep an eye on him for half an hour. If he was still refusing to put weight on his leg and/or still in shock we should take him to the emergency vets. By this time, I was in shock. The adrenalin was wearing off, and I was shaking and felt sick. In true British style, we had a cup of tea while we waited to see what would happen next.
Twenty minutes later he was still limping and was clearly in a lot of pain. We decided to get him to the vets. We had just made this decision when the doorbell rang. It was the dog owner come to see how our furry friend was. Somehow, probably from sheer terror, our cat found the strength to move himself. Unfortunately he chose to move himself up the chimney.
The dog owner left and we tried to get the cat out from the chimney, but we couldn’t find him. In a feat of extraordinary bendy-ness, my boyfriend managed to get his arm up the chimney and down behind the fireplace where he found the invalid. Unfortunately he couldn’t quite reach/bend to be able to get the cat back out again. I was all for getting a sledge hammer to the original 1900’s fireplace in order to save our cat. My boyfriend, always the rational one in the family, kept trying to move him.
Eventually he manoeuvred the cat into a position where he could grab the scruff of his neck. His logic was that he wouldn’t hurt him any more than he was hurt already, and quite frankly he needed to come out. Sure enough, out he came, bloody and now sooty.
Before he could escape again we bundled him up and got him to the emergency vets. They examined him and said they thought there was a small break, but they couldn’t x-ray him as he was too in shock to sedate. They bandaged him up and told us to take him to our vets the next day.
We took our wounded soldier home and found a box for him to stay in (we had to try and limit his movement).
The next day we took him to our vets where he was x-rayed. Sure enough, three out of the four bones in his leg were broken. He was housebound for the next month, and tried several times to convince us he was better by removing his bandage himself. We didn’t fall for that though, much to his frustration.
I am pleased to say that he made a full recovery (he’s currently snoring on the sofa next to me), but it took a while for him to pluck up the nerve to go back in the neighbour’s garden. Even now, three years later and despite the fact the dog no longer lives there, I still get a split second of panic when I see him jump the fence. It’s a good job cats get nine lives.
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This post was written as part of the Writer’s Workshop and is my tale of an ER moment.
* me doing ironing is almost worth a trip to A & E in itself.
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