I roll over in bed and try to stare at the red fuzzy letters, 3:00 am; I groan as I hear more puking sounds come from outside my door. Thankfully Kevin is awake to deal with it and I can just go back to sleep; so this is what morning wake-up calls feel like. I’m frustrated we thought our little baby was getting better, eating half a can without puking it up, then asking for more – all to puke it up later. It’s definitely not a stuck hairball, and even if it is he won’t eat the food to dissolve it because it makes him puke.

That has been my life for the past nine days – cringing, body tense waiting to hear the start of three messes to clean. People who own cats know the distinct sound an urping hairball cat brings. Watching him; his body convulsing, making whooping noises that echo, trying to bring whatever is left up, just breaks my heart to see him in pain and not being able to do anything. After he pukes; he looks at me with those big yellow eyes as if to say, ‘Why?!’ and then comes in for a cuddle, as if to say, ‘Protect me, Mummy.’ We haven’t had our devil cat lately; no scratching on the TV nor scratching at the door and meowing to get out. It’s been quite peaceful with no noise and a lot of cuddles and part of me can’t help but enjoy that.

We took the plunge and went into the vet for a second time; he was placed under and checked with an ultrasound – a lovely chunk of change gone from my purse. He has had bad experiences with vets; the first we believe abused him, the second thought he had rabies, but three is a lucky charm. We got a detailed description of each slide they took and even a five second clip of his beating heart and overall allowed us to come in after hours for this all to happen. The vet takes time out to make sure he is comfortable with him and that we fully understand what’s going on. No foreign object, no hair ball, no heartworms or worms of any kind. His gall bladder duct (the duct that delivers bile to the small intestine) is 5x the size it should be for a cat. The vet believes he has an infection and gave us a 10-day dose of antibiotics. That would explain the bile puke when he hasn’t eaten for awhile, I hope it works.

When the vet phoned us last night, it was the worse feeling ever. I handed the phone to Kevin incase I cried and the two minutes he was on that phone, felt like an eternity. Your imagination starts run wild and think the worst – ‘His intestines are all convoluted and would need surgery that we can’t afford’ ‘Something went wrong with putting him to sleep and he died’ and Kevin going ‘ok…ok’ and getting choked up didn’t help me either. Thoughts rushed through my head – what photos do I have of him? Do I have any when he was a year old, what about two and it made me realize that I strive for the perfect photo, I never think to snap one away with horrid lighting and angle. It’s not how the photo looks, what is in the photo that really matters. Memory fades away, but photos do not, no matter how it is technically taken. I’m going to take as many horrible photos I want of the animals or people I want; to ensure when life takes a horrible turn, I still have something to hold on to.

My two boys enjoying the sunshine.