Louis the Bengal came stumbling into our kitchen around 1AM, while we
were on the phone with the clinic regarding our resident teen girl's
acute illness.

He crept in, lowing, with his tail between his legs. Any touch made
him growl with that frightening sub-sonic Bengal growl.

We took him to the emergency clinic. No obstructions, but his
temperature was 105.5, and he was clearly in pain (usually cats will
hide discomfort, but Louis was howling and obviously uncomfortable).

The emergency vet prescribed antibiotics, and told us to see our vet,
which we did the next day. He did a full blood work-up and x-ray. No
blockages, no obvious infections. He told me that cats' fevers can
spike up with trauma, and I thought maybe he'd had a scrape with our
resident bitch female. He added an anti-inflammatory to Louis'
prescription.

That night, Louis seemed better.

We noticed that night that he had a large lump in his lower
hind-quarters. The vet said it may have been a migration of the
sub-cutaneous saline injection, given to rehydrate him in reaction to
his fever.

The lump stayed for days, and after some time we could feel a wound at
the top of it. The lump shrank, and Louis seemed happy, though he had
that clump of matted fur on his flank.

A few days ago, I sat down at my laptop, and found a lump of fur and
flesh on the keyboard.

The lump had shrunk, and Louis had apparently bitten off the scab and
left it on my workspace, perhaps saying "daddy, I'm better now!".

We love all our cats. We feel a special responsibility to Louis since
we bought him from a breeder, and he's wound up having a very unusual
personality. He doesn't have Tiger's moggie genes to toughen him up
against illness - so he's a special kitty.

I still feel grateful that we bought him, instead of a clueless family
looking for a trophy cat.

BLink
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