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Golly's Road Traffic Accident

Just before Christmas 2001 Golly went missing for 36 hours. While she's done this plenty of times before, it was always in the summer months and I always thought she'd come home when she was ready. This time was different though. On the night she stayed outside there had been a heavy frost which did not thaw the next day. I went to look for her in all her usual haunts, and didn't hear her bell or see that tail disappearing into any bushes, which is what usually happens when she's out on a hunt! When she eventually dragged herself home she was very cold and lethargic, and refused any food. She gradually became more miserable and wouldn't even drink any water.

When I took her to the vet she thought Golly may have ruptured her diaphragm, but the x-ray showed that she was still in one piece. Her lungs, however, where extremely impacted and she was using her stomach muscles to help her breathe. She also had a large quantity of fluid on her lungs which developed into pneumonia, I guess because she'd stayed out in that heavy frost. All this, in addition to being severely dehydrated, meant a stay at the vets on fluids and antibiotics. I think being left there made her realise she'd better sort herself out, and she perked up quite quickly. She came home on Christmas Day looking so much better, but still nothing like my little girl.

As the days went by she was showing more and more signs of improvement, until the second week of January. For some reason she had managed to get herself worked up and would not settle. Eventually she lay down next to me, and then five minutes later I sensed something was terribly wrong. When I checked her closely she'd stopped breathing. Of course, this threw me into a complete panic - I'd never been faced with a cat that had stopped breathing before!

Not knowing what to do, I shook her as much as I dared until I got a faint whimper from her. On that I called the vet's emergency line while I was holding her and told them I'd be bringing her in. I drove there faster than I've ever driven that route before with her on the passenger seat beside me (there was no way I was going to push her into her carry case in that state!) and waited for her vet to arrive. During that wait her breathing stopped again so I figured I had nothing to lose by giving her mouth to mouth resuscitation! She managed to pull through just as the vet arrived, and was promptly rushed in to the consulting room where they put a tube down her throat to open her airways and got her breathing properly again. She needed to stay there, and was put on fluids and antibiotics again as she'd developed a secondary infection.

When she came home, I knew there was no way she was going to be let outside while the weather was so cold. At first, she didn't seem too interested in anything other than plenty of rest by the radiator and kitten food. She'd also bruised her jaw enough to making eating very difficult for her, so kitten food and specially prepared meals were on the menu for quite a while. As she continued to improve, and started putting on some weight (she'd dropped to just under 1kg), her old personality started to reappear. Once she'd decided that she was better she saw no reason to be kept indoors, and keeping her in was causing real distress.

I finally relented and wrapped her up to protect her chest from the cold, and put her on the lead I'd bought for her when she'd broken her leg, and out we went. The first trip in the back garden didn't last for long, and every little noise seemed to spook her. But it wasn't until the first week of March that I decided she could go out on her own, but I went with her. She had a little potter about where I could see her, and then something frightened her back in. I left the back door open for her so she could come and go as she pleased without having to negotiate the cat flap, and she spent a lot of her time sitting on the back door step. With time, she's getting her confidence back out there and is starting to return to her old ways again. At first I knew she'd never be far from the back door, but now I know she's off along the canal bank and over the bridge to the hill the other side. Now that Summer is on its way I've no doubt that she'll be up to all sorts of mischief and terrorising the local wildlife population again!