Hope is probably the worst enemy of happiness. Ripley died today. She was put to sleep by the vet who found all sorts of diseases on her, including a form of immunodeficiency, typical of cats, which was going to put her through a world of pain. I don’t really know what to write, I have 6 million bad feelings bottled up in my throat that won’t come out. My wife and I had to go in the middle of the woods at night to bury her. As if all that wasn’t enough, there’s a possibility that all the other cats have gotten the virus as well.

When all this is over and I can open my eyes, please let me know.

We took Ripley to the vet in the morning, today. She’s definitely on her way to recovery, although it’s still hard to tell if there’s any serious internal injury.

She was full of energy and walked around the house and messed around with the other cats. Her pupils fully contract now, I think, although her membranes remain half closed.

We started putting on some cream for her eyes.

She still bleeds from her nose occasionally, especially when she sneezes.

I’m quite happy and relieved with the present situation and, after three sleepless nights, I’m definitely going to get some sleep tonight.

A friend of ours, who got married a little before we did, a year ago, is getting divorced. How weird… I mean, I can’t see myself making that big a mistake. Maybe I’m wrong.

Anyway, Ripley (we called her Ripley, yes), is really starting to come back to life. She’s significantly better, and breathes normally now. She can walk, although not very well and she still has her eye mebranes half closed. However, I think her pupils are not as dilated anymore.

It was a quiet day, Dee being away at our friends birthday all day, and me taking care of Ripley, including taking her to the vet for her shots.

The cat still breathes with difficulty and spent the whole day panting.

However, the temperature has gone up to normal levels which is a very good sign.

The vet checked again and her jaw is definitely broken, but not loose, which is very good. Apparently she’s broken the left corner and the vet moved it a bit to get it in place. She appears to have no other fractures, but she still doesn’t stand by herself and always falls to her left.

We can’t feed her, she won’t swallow. We did manage to give her some water though, with a syringe.

She’s recovering…

It was a normal work day, meeting in the morning, meeting in the afternoon. They both went OK.

Later, Dee joined me at the art school where I teach part-time; since they need a new person for fourth year design class, Dee went to interview for the job.

Never mind how it went… we were coming back and we saw a small black cat lying by a tree, on the sidewalk. First I thought it was dead, but then it moved and I felt somewhat relieved it was alive. Well… we were just going to pass the cat and be on our way, only we looked back. It’d been hit by a car, no doubt. It’s eyes were half closed, the swollen tongue hanging from it’s mouth underlined the visible difficulty it had breathing. The left side of it’s head was bleeding.

The dilemma struck, obviously. What to do? Here we are, not exactly near home, we don’t have a car. A ferry trip, plus a bus trip await us. We have three cats already, and we have no idea if this one is even near making it.

Dee couldn’t take it, and while I fought my tumbling stomach she made up her mind. She picked the cat up and wrapped it in her coat… The little animal was clearly in bad shape, but there was no other choice for us, we had to take her.

As fast as we could, we took it to the vet “It” is now a “her”. The odds aren’t looking too good. She’s hurt bad, she can hardly breathe and she probably won’t make it through the night. The vet gave her a couple of shots: antibiotics and anti-inflammatory and instructed us to keep her warm. Her body temperature had dropped quite a bit. She wouldn’t have lasted a couple of hours more on the street.

It was a long, sleepless night. After a while she started panting for air, just like a dog, her tongue going a hundred miles an hour. The whole night she breathed like that and I thought her heart wouldn’t take it. But it did and she lived through the night.