No Bleeding Required

Friday 18th March

Day 331

The pussy cat lies himself down on the vet’s high table.

‘If he was any more relaxed he’d be comatose,’ she says ‘What a handsome boy he is’.

I feel absurdly proud to have such a well behaved and beautiful cat.

‘I need to take some bloods,’ she says, ‘to check for diabetes, kidney function and thyroid - find out why he’s being sick.’

A nurse comes in to hold him while the vet shaves the long fur under his neck with an electric razor. He doesn’t like it. When she raises her needle e bares his teeth, makes a moaning, hissing sound in his throat and strikes out with his paw, claws unsheathed and rips up a line of blood beads in her finger.

She suggests we come back another day as he may need to be sedated. We leave with pouches of soft food and hard dry pellets for sensitive stomachs. I’m still proud to have such a pussy cat, a ‘don’t-mess-with-me’ pussy cat, with venom in his claws. I’m sorry for the vet but glad it wasn’t my finger.

I have another kind of striking out to do, with a Tinkerbell wand - TIng! All better! No bleeding required. But I may not be very well behaved along the way. I may do some hissing and moaning too.