Oakley Health Scare – A costly Silver Lining for me

I had a routine doctor’s appointment at 11 and was dreading it. “How much do you drink? Do you know smoking is bad for you?” “No doc, when I said a bottle I meant a day not a week and no is it? When did they find that out?” But I was spared this little treat by Oakley, my morbidly obese three legged cat who started screaming at 10.40 and then showed himself unable to walk. His sole back leg was just being dragged along the floor.

I thought back to the demise of poor Kitosh, my old cat who behaved in this way as he was struck down with am embolism. He was dead within an hour. Oakley crawled into the corner. I called for the Mrs who scuttled downstairs and within 10 minutes we were at the vets and I was off the medical hook.

Oakley just sat there as the vet took his blood pressure and stuck probes and thermometers into various “openings”. After about half an hour with the Mrs almost in tears came the verdict: the strain of carrying his enormous belly around on just three legs had put too much pressure on his one hind leg and he had a swollen knee. A quick injection of some pain killers and Oakley was almost happy again. In fact he was so happy, as I worked out how I was to pay a bill for £106, that he urinated all over the Mrs and then did a shit on the floor of the vet’s waiting room. We were not charged extra for that.

A few hours later and the old boy is hopping around as if per normal. He has slept most of the day and has just headed off to the marital bed to lies down with the Mrs who brought home some extra treats for him – organic cat food made from hand caught trout and shrimp.  The cat known as Benefits Street is back in his element, sleeping, eating too much and contributing nothing to the household while leaving the grateful taxpayer (i.e. me) to pick up the tab for his lifestyle choices.