Jack Cat and the visit to Rhodes 2
He gave Jack an antibiotic injection which came with the added bonus of calming him down and making him sleepy for the rest of the trip – mind you, he was pretty laid back already. On top of that, he prescribed three times something for gastro-something for two days, a tablet twice a day for other gastric doo-dahs and a syrup antibiotic three times per day for… everything else. Those last two to run for 10 days.
Now, we’ve all seen the video on how to give a cat a tablet. Hm. The thing is, he can’t eat anything for three hours after the first medicine so the days will have to run like this: 6.30 a.m. syringe medicine one by mouth. Wait one hour with cat demanding food and shouting. 7.30, catch cat and add a quarter of a tablet to it without it spitting it out or taking off your hand. Wait two hours with cat still demanding food and wondering why no-one likes him any longer. 9.30, temp cat to his bowl by saying ‘Mmm, lovely new cat biscuits for you, you’ll like these…’ and then hold him still while using a syringe for another syrup. Then let him get to his food although, by this time, he is up on the roof and refusing to come down. Some kind of rooftop protest at being syringed and tableted, all before breakfast.
And the worst part is that we have to repeat that process three time each day for two days and then the first medicine is done and we’re left with only three time one thing and two times another each day, a total of nine dangerous adventures per day for two days and five for the next eight days after that. The cat is already running away from us and won’t come into the kitchen because we have done the medicine combination once today. But, it must be done and it will be done; as long as he comes down from the roof.
After the visit to the vet was concluded (printed blood tests, the instruction manual written out, the prescription dealt with and Jack given a proper medical book and a CD of his X-Ray) and the bill settled, the vet then checked a local pharmacy to make sure they had the right things. They did and so he arranged for his father to come and pick us up and drive us back to the Plaza, via the pharmacy. Now I call that a great service. The vet also comes to Symi once per month and is in content with Michaelis at the pet shop, and other animal carers, and so getting hold of Jack’s new food won’t be a problem. Getting the medicine into him will be.
By this time, it was just on midday and, as we had been up since 3.30, we thought a beer would be in order. We had jack in left luggage again where he was sleeping so we stayed at the hotel and shared one of their mammoth pizzas. The afternoon was spent wandering slowly back towards Akandia harbour, taking it in turns to carry the 6.1 kilo cat in his box, via the Symi café at Mandraki where Jack attracted a lot of attention from the local cats who came to have a sniff. The walk around to the harbour wasn’t so bad and it’s much safer now there is a boardwalk to use rather than a narrow road. We stopped at Mouragio while we waited for the boat to come in and then carried Himself towards embarkation.
Passing, as we did so, the vet’s father and mother who had been sent to drop something off to go over to Symi. We had a pleasant exchange of well wishes and thanked them again and then set up shop on the back deck again, one of three, where it was warm enough to travel without my coat on. Luckily, at Symi, Konstantinos and his taxi were free and so we were driven up to Horio where we were able to get Jack home, out of his box and most of his first syringe-stuff down his screech before he could make a fuss about the whole thing. This he did later, with much use of voice, but he is settling down now (Thursday afternoon) and there has been no more sickness, cross fingers.
There, not particularly funny, but I thought you might be interested. If you want the number for this particular vet, drop me a line, we are happy to recommend.
