 The
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| Issue 9, Vol. 4 | Miraculous Cats | February 20, 2005 |
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Pampered Cat On The Mend After Transplant |
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For Seemore Graham, recovery means an occasional game of chase with a pile of Tootsie Roll wrappers. It means he offers his brother and sister cats a disinterested gaze instead of a hiss. And it means he sometimes will forgo fancy fish fillets basted with lemon-herb sauce for a bowl of dry cat food. Seemore is the finicky Siamese who drew national attention in May when he was admitted to the Michigan Veterinary Specialists care center in Auburn Hills for a $12,000 kidney transplant. Seemore suffered from polycystic kidney disease, which doctors said would kill him within two years if left untreated. So his owner, Bruce Graham, looked into the best veterinary hospitals. He spent $8,000 testing some of his 41 cats to find Seemore's donor, finally settling on Inky, a 3-year-old Siamese. And in the spring, Graham loaded the cats into his truck and made the 993-mile drive from their Wichita, Kan., home to Auburn Hills. Now, well on the road to recovery, Seemore is living a carefully monitored and pampered life. "He's a fat cat now," Graham, 47, said earlier this month. "He really seems happier. This cat has purred like he's never purred before in his life." But for Seemore and his owner, there were also moments of panic. Just days after the kidney transplant, Seemore and Inky were ready to head home. Graham loaded them into his Ford F-350 and off they went. They stopped for the night in a St. Louis motel. The next morning, Graham loaded the cats back into his truck, turning on air to chase away the heat. Seemore and Inky waited inside their carriers as Graham ran back to the room for the rest of their things. In the truck, Seemore and Inky began to pant heavily. Graham had accidently turned on the heat. "It freaked me out," Graham said. "I called the vet, and it turned out they were fine, but I was shaking in my boots. My heart was racing 100 miles an hour." They all made it home safely, and Seemore began a new routine. Every 12 hours, he receives a pill to keep him from rejecting the new kidney. The medication costs up to $6 a day. Every week for the first three months, he was subjected to 50 to 100 blood tests, costing $250 monthly. And to protect him from disease, Seemore got a new room that keeps out the other cats, including Inky, who Graham said is happy and healthy. The financial strain has been difficult for Graham. This year, there was a lot of rain in Kansas. For Graham, a tree trimmer, that meant a lean year. On top of that, his truck began to falter and his chipper blew in July. "I really have been a lot happier since the surgery," Graham said. "But, since I haven't had much work, it's been hard." Seemore has been none the wiser. When he meows at 3 a.m., Graham rises from bed and accompanies his cat for a walk in the neighborhood. When Graham goes to work, to the grocery, to run errands, Seemore sits on a pile of blankets on the truck's passenger seat, a litter box at the ready in the cab. When Graham eats beef jerky, Seemore does, too. When Graham grabs a Subway sandwich, Seemore gets a warm treat of chicken breast. "I try to do what's fun for Seemore, not what's fun for me," Graham said. "He's my master; I'm not his. When he says jump, I jump. It's what love does to you." ---- Copyright ©2004 Detroit Free Press. All Rights Reserved. |
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. Reprinted from Arcamax Cats & Dogs |
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Cat Survives 3 Hours In Engine Compartment |
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Dennis Ralph thought his car engine was purring along quite nicely until he realised there was a cat trapped under the bonnet. Pussy the cat spent at least three hours in the engine compartment and survived a 20-mile round trip. Dennis Ralph, 74, of The Links, Trevethin, said, "We went down to Cwmbran, got out of the car, and heard a strange cat-like noise, but I thought it was coming from a high hedge. We picked my grandson up, drove back, parked and heard the same kind of noise again. I looked in the boot and under the car before I opened up the bonnet and there the cat was in the corner of the engine. It couldn't have moved itself. It had got itself as far away from the heat and noise of the engine and from the ground as possible, but it couldn't do anything else. " The black and white feline, who is 14, belongs to 63-year-old retired insurance salesman John Morris. He said, "He had disappeared about lunchtime. Then later my neighbour Dennis came over and he was petrified. He said, 'Have you lost a cat?' I said I had and he said, 'I think it's under my bonnet.' "We opened the bonnet and there was Pussy trapped in the engine under the leads to the sparkplugs. "He was making a loud howling noise and was obviously terrified. He could easily have fallen out. "He was in there for about three hours and was really hot. I've had him for ten years, since he was found as a stray. He's a bit bruised and he doesn't like me picking him up too well at the moment." ---- ©2004 Newsquest Media Group. A Gannett Company |
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