Jimmy
Success Stories
Jimmy
Tennessee Fund - 2012
Click on the picture to view Jimmy's Facebook Album
My sister's boyfriend knew a guy who owned tuxedo cats. The female who kept having kittens ended up having another litter of five with one boy from her last litter. They gave those kittens, once weaned, to my sister and her boyfriend. Seeing as my sis and company have a one bedroom apartment, and rescued a stray from their complex, they needed to get rid of at least one. I had just rescued a stray from my apartment complex, and hate only having one cat because they get bored easily. I've always owned two cats at a time whenever I owned cats...in looking for a companion for Smudgie, my sis told me she couldn't handle five cats in a one bedroom, so she gave me one of hers.
His name started out as Squeakers, because he squeaks when he meows lightly. When he got to my apartment, he wasn't meowing lightly, he was full out vocalizing. My mother and I are slight wrestling fans (I grew up with my mom and babysitter jumping and shouting at home to recordings of wrestling shows) and my mother gave Jimmy his name after Jimmy "The Mouth of the South" Hart. It fits him all too well!
Anyway on Friday, August 24th, my mother and I got a generic version of Purina Cat Chow's indoor formula because we were running super low on money. That night, into Saturday morning, Jimmy started vomiting for seemingly no reason! He's done that for hair balls, so the first time I didn't worry. The second time, I got suspicious, because he hadn't vomited hairballs in months! The fourth time, we got concerned. By Sunday night, into Monday morning, he had vomited about ten times! Poor guy ended up isolating himself when he was the first cat to investigate anything! He scared us to death and back doing that. SO not him!
That day, Monday the 27th, is when we brought him to PetMed (right down the road from us!) and they did an x-ray on Jimmy and showed us what they found. I noticed a knot on one side of the light area, which everyone said looked like a hair tie...and I have thick hair, so sometimes when I pull those ouchless hair ties, they break and I tie them up and continue using them! So, I felt horrible until they started telling me stories of other pets who had swallowed various objects...then I felt bad because I couldn't help him!
I went to the library as soon as we got Jimmy back home Monday afternoon because we currently have no computer, and went literally frantic trying to find any place that helped, even though PetMed gave us some info for Brown Dog. I applied at probably eight places, and no one was replying back! It seemed like a week but was only one day when Brown Dog replied. We got Jimmy in Premier VetCare for surgery Tuesday, and even though he was ready to come home Wednesday, we can't keep up with after-surgery care the day after, so for his safety we left him at the vet.
Thursday morning, we got him back home...and our other cat, Smudgie, didn't recognize him for almost 2 weeks! She finally stopped open-mouthed growling and hissing at him, and we have to take him back for a recheck! Sad face.
Now, he's doing much better! He's back to his old self, even playing a little with his playmate! His fur is starting to grow back wonderfully, and his stitches have been removed! He's due for one more recheck on the 14th but after that, he should be home free!
This picture is Jimmy laying on my chest shortly after his surgery. He got super clingy once he was feeling better!
Jimmy's treatment was made possible by the generosity of the The Cereceres-Bickell Wedding