THE POWER OF LIFE LONG LOVE...

Unusual for me, this post is not about my knitwear but about the power of love...Love comes in all shapes and forms, love of our partner, our children, parents, our friends and love for the life we share with our chosen pet.....who else in our lives do we get to choose? Most love relationships either 'just' happen or are blood related. This last week has tested my love....

These are my drawings from a few years ago of my very much beloved 'Asian Burmilla' cats, who were my babies before my babies were my babies. Asian Burmillas are unusual quite rare cats, which originally the breed came about as an accident between a Burmese and a Chinchilla cat, but the kittens were so beautiful with enormous Jade green eyes and had such soft loving and intelligent characters that it was decided they should be a breed themselves...it turned out that this designer cat was excellent for people with allergies as their skin/fur oils are less irritant. My little girls dad was the very first grand champion of this breed and has his own obituary website due to his fame.

Around 16 years ago I left Germany for the first time and went to live in Northern Ireland before the seize fire...Gotta say I was not brave and quite scared so on the trip over via Yorkshire and the need for some love reassurance, we hunted high and low for rescue kittens but was told kittens were out of season! So we found some kittens in Yellow pages and went to see them. This is when we first met! Tiny mink coloured kittens with white/cream bellies and the biggest green eyes you ever saw surrounded by eyeliner! One girl was the ring leader, chasing round causing havoc and leading her brother and sister into chaos, another wee girl decided to cuddle me and curled up for a purr and love on my knee. The chaos became my Tara and the sweetness my Tikka, full names Tikka Seraphim and Taragon Cherubim.....named after curries and the 2 cherubs found on the bottom of a very famous Caravaggio painting...what can I say they were my little cherubs! So we all moved to Northern Ireland and in the next 16 years they became my main stay; my closest best friends through thick and thin, always loving, gentle funny and never judging. Lets face it there are not many cats who sit and watch, whilst sharing girly treats the full 2 1/2 hours of the original film,'That darn cat' is there?! Who like to wear pink plastic shopping bag dresses and jump from German schranks on to a christmas buffet into the cheesecake, in quest of the Tuna and Salmon! Or when your heart is breaking put both arms around you in a full on hug.

So 16 years pass in a blink of an eye and many stories of the comedy duo..until this last week not one single day of illness, full set of teeth, full health and springing around like kittens.....Then on the last day of my recent exhibition at Alexandra Palace my little Tikka became ill....It was a long day that last exhibition day, knowing I had had to leave her despite good friends going round to check on her.

The initial sickness lead to an other wise previous food obsessed cat (other wise known as lumpy) to stop eating completely and despite the vets and mine intervention she developed 'Fatty Liver disease' otherwise leading to feline Anorexia. Apparently this is very hard to treat especially in old cats and this last Tuesday after several procedures I left the vets with a sachet of, home to be made saline fluid, as palliative care and an appointment all pet owners fear for the next day. My heart was breaking, 16 years of knowing my feelings and loving me beyond reason and her body was eating away at itself .....so I made a split second choice when I placed her carry basket down on the hallway floor, either fall to pieces and begin my grieving or do what she would do and fight no matter what, no matter her age and that's what I did (I did what I knew she would do for me and that is fight the seemingly inevitable).....

So....

Every half an hour I force fed her saline fluid and every 1 hour force fed her liquidised prescription cat food via a pipette, she is so gentle and placid that this was not a problem because she loves and trusts me beyond reason, so it was easy to do. By mid morning my worse fears were coming true and she was slipping away, I thought putting my previous nursing experience into practise for my beloved cat was too late......

but then a miracle happened and I think this is the miracle of belief and true love...she started to wake up and by teatime she had eaten just a little of real food from my hand not bad for a diagnosed Anorexic........Every hour throughout the night I carried on the feed and re hydration therapy and by the time the most dreaded Vets appointment came she was 'speaking' to me again...the vets and nurses were so happy and said she had turned a corner....very unusual for a cat thought not needed to be put back on a saline drip as it was too late....

So now 3 days later she is sat cleaning and purring happily away as if the last week was a bad dream...I have now got her back onto wet food and am down to 2 water pipettes a day and Tara is no longer avoiding the cat who smelt of death and scared her so, and is helping to heal her too..so I guess the moral of this is...it's amazing what love and 24 little hours can do if you set your mind to it...she may be 16 and may be on borrowed time but I so did not want such a beautiful soul to go in such a horrid way and now she is happy again and enjoying family life, running around causing chaos as her sister did all those years ago!

I am making this post because I was not aware this could happen suddenely to cats and have never seen a leaflet about it, so I wanted to make all cat lovers aware...it works like this; cat gets upset ,could be underlying or just a change in environment, cat stops eating, if does not eat within 48 hours and is slightly over weight the fat breaks down and sticks to the liver, the liver then stops all digestive reactions and the cat will not eat (Vicious circle) so the body starts to close down and poison itself and once beyond a point is progressive and untreatable especially in the elderly.