On his way -- Mr. Chandra...

This is about a cat. Those who have read my previous posts will not be much surprised. This one might get a wee bit schmaltzy, though...

Mr. Chandra came to live with – well, around – us about 10 years ago. He was already 5 to 8 years old, a big strapping fighting tom, black and white fur, and bulldog shoulders. His face was scarred and his ears were torn and crumpled from previous fights which I suspect he’d won. He never bothered our other outdoor cats, and they moved aside for him when he came around.

When he first saw me, he ran off around the corner of our home, then turned to peer back at me to see what I was up to, and whether I was chasing him away. After a week or so of watching me fill the food bowl, he condescended to simply move a safe distance off, and observe me as I went about caring for the cats that were ours, and those who were ... guests.

By then, we had decided his name would be Mr. Chandra – the name Chandra is Hindi, and means “moon”. Mr. Chandra was black and white, and made me think of the moon with one side in the light, and one in the dark.

He would come and go, sometimes staying around for a week or two, then disappearing for another few weeks, then showing up again at his own whim. I sometimes saw him down in the village, on the shore, at a neighbor’s house, or far up the street where I felt sure he could never find his way back to our home again.

But he always came back, and our cat food is expensive; the highest non-prescription quality on the local market (in fact, we order nutritional foods from Amazon.com now).

During the last year or so, as he grew older, Mr. Chandra allowed me to move closer to him as long as I was obviously playing the servant, and eventually I was pushing him aside (gently) with my ankle to avoid stepping on his paws when he apparently couldn’t wait for dinner.

Mr. Chandra disappeared about 2 months ago, and eventually I thought he must have met his end in the road, from snake bite (we have poisonous snakes on Okinawa and the animals sometimes tangle with them), or just decided to call it quits after 15 to 18 years.

Then two weeks ago, he returned.

His fur was ratty and patches were missing due to mange. He had mites, fleas, and other... His bulldog shoulders where thin and boney, and he had lost considerable weight. His ears were crumpled to begin with, but now he held them flat against his skull, which had more scars than before, or maybe the scars were just more visible in his thinning fur. His tail was nearly bereft of fur and he dragged it some of the time rather than hold it up. He was dirty, emaciated, and moved slowly.

Mr. Chandra was very ill.

We fed him up, of course, hoping that it was more a matter of malnutrition than viral or bacterial illness or parasitic infestation. But this time, his manner had changed. He allowed me to approach him and touch, then pet him. He seemed starved for attention this time. He let me stroke his fur, scratch his chin, brush the small twigs and dirt from his bony back. He let me put a dose of Revolution on him for the mites, fleas, and other. He rubbed against my ankles and even more important than food, he begged to be cuddled gently, petted, and touched.

He had become old. He was scared.

On our back balcony to which he has access, I made up a bed for him in a sheltered box since the weather is cooling down, and put food and water out for him alone.

But he didn’t seem to be getting much better. His fur began to show signs of recovery, getting softer and cleaner, with fewer scratchy lesions. But he seemed weaker and slower each day of the week.

With no big signs of improvement, Mr. Chandra and I paid a visit to our vet, where he ended up spending a week. Severe anemia, kidney and liver failure, dehydration, gingivitis, mange, and a host of (dying) skin parasites. And FLV...

The prognosis is not good.

Yesterday I brought him home, but the best I can do is maintain his health level and make him as comfortable as possible. Not much will improve except for his mange and skin parasites. He had a transfusion to help his anemia (slightly), but will need meds for the rest of his life.

Anyway, I fed him and made up his bed again with a clean blanket in a shielded location on the back balcony.

He expressed his gratitude for the food and closeness cat-appropriately, and it seemed to me that he was making up for years of holding back, staying aloof, and denying us the pleasure of his closeness.

Last night, after a good feeding and a short nap, and before I could give him his daily meds, he wandered off again. I left food for him, and fresh water.

By this morning, he had not returned; his bed unslept-in and his food untouched, he was nowhere to be seen. He is one day behind in his meds.

To make matters worse, I am in school teaching today, and at lunchtime the students played a song on the in-school PA system (they have sort of a “radio station” on which they may play adolescent-appropriate international music hits for their lunchtime).

While I am aware that I anthropomorphize greatly when discussing almost any living thing, I felt today that if one song could be his, if one song expressed the way he acted toward me last night, it would have been this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xKM3mGt2pE

It is depressing to know that Mr. Chandra, so recently finding himself in need of love and human touch, has a limited time left to him...

I hope he is back home on “his balcony” when I return from school today, and I will try to get his meds into him.

More as it happens...