Come Home, Lucas

Our cat has run away!

Actually, he ran away twice within a week, but this time he hasn't turned up.

The first time we noticed him missing was the weekend before Thanksgiving. I had last seen him Friday afternoon in the upstairs window as I was leaving to go to the store. When I hadn't seen him Friday night or Saturday during the day, I figured he was just still hanging out upstairs. But when I'd still seen no sign of him by Saturday night I got worried and started searching the house. James and Hartley (my cousin who lives upstairs) searched the house too. On rare occasions, Lucas has been known to disappear within the house for 24 hours and then reappear from some undiscovered hiding place so we were all hoping that he was just eluding us.

Still no sign of him on Sunday and it was time to admit that he had gotten out. We think he snuck by my grandmother while she was either on her way into or out of the house. We're pretty sure if it had been me, or James, or Hartley that we would have seen him and been able to stop him.

 I should have called the SPCA that day, but I was kind of in denial so I put it off till Monday, and they ended up calling us first.

A neighbor had found Lucas lying in the street and brought him to our local SPCA. They were able to use his microchip to get our information and contact us. We drove over there immediately.

Poor Lucas was in the SPCA vet clinic. He'd had two grand mal seizures since they'd gotten him the day before.

We had suspected that he'd had seizures before when he was a kitten but they were never officially diagnosed as such. He would have these episodes where he'd drool a lot and be unresponsive, and sometimes he would shake his head in a weird way... then he would snap out of it after a while. It had't happened in a long time. The last time it had been really bad was right after we first adopted him. We had spent that Christmas eve in 2009 at a vet emergency room and the doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. We couldn't afford more extensive tests, so we ended up bringing him home fearing the worst. He spent Christmas day looking pathetic and not eating much, but the following day he made a miraculous recovery!

He had more drooling, zoning out episodes that first year, but nothing so dramatic as that Christmas eve. And the episodes seemed to have stopped. We figured it was associated with stress, which would explain why it happened again after he'd gone missing. We think he must have had a seizure out on the street because that would explain him lying in the middle of the road. The SPCA vet said the seizures he had while he was there were clear grand mal seizures complete with the violent shaking. We never saw him do that.

Poor baby, he was sickly and pathetic. He'd lost weight and he was sleepy and limp. He'd been drugged with a sedative to prevent more seizures. We brought him to another vet for blood tests. Again, they couldn't tell what exactly was wrong without further testing which again, we couldn't afford. So just like when he was a kitten, we brought him home fearing the worst.

And Lucas might really have nine lives, because he made another miraculous recovery! After lying around and eating very little for about a day and a half, he started getting up, walking around, using his litter box, eating and drinking water. He had sure scared us, and we were so relieved to see him pull through again!

By last Saturday, he was almost his old self again. He was starting to show us that he wanted to get out of the apartment and venture out in to the rest of the house and he seemed well enough so I let him.

But then he never came back!

He got out again! Seriously, fool me twice shame on me! I feel terrible. I had no idea that he would try to get out again. It must have happened the exact same way as the first time. My grandmother is the only one who left the house and came back that afternoon. She says she didn't see him, but I don't see how else he could have gotten out! He must have gotten past her.

This time I was much quicker to call the SPCA and 24 Pet Watch. Both said they would call if his microchip was scanned again. That was on Sunday. We haven't heard anything. We are still keeping an eye out for him in the neighborhood and I every time I look out a window I hope I will see him.

If Lucas still has 7 lives left, then maybe he is somewhere out there still safe and sound. I like to think that maybe a gang of stray cats (of which there is at least one in our neighborhood) has taken him under their wing and that they go around together finding food and singing songs like in a Disney movie.

That seems reasonable, right? Or maybe a lonely stranger came across him and Lucas was so sweet and friendly that the person took him home and is now taking good care of Lucas as a new-found companion. And they sing songs together too.

Our poor Lu baby! I just still can't believe he got out again after all that drama the first time!