Anyway, enough about my personal thoughts on Noel....I thought I would share this great story, written by our Neutering Officer, Kay, which tells the tale of one of our beautiful rescue cats and how he met Noel over 10 years ago...
Some of you may have watched
the recent television series on C4 about Super Vet Noel Fitzpatrick and I would
like to tell you about my own experience with him.
About 10 years ago Cats Protection Camberley & District were
approached by a vet about a stray (we named Choci) who’d being hit by a car.
Xrays showed fractures to both of his hips.
Usually this would be too difficult to
repair but the vet had spoken to Noel who agreed to do the work at cost price
to Cats Protection.
So the decision was made to
give Choci a second chance at life and he was taken along to Fitzpatrick Referrals.
I was impressed when Noel
phoned at 10.30pm to say the operation had gone smoothly and everything looked
OK. At this time not a lot of people
knew about Noel’s work, including me, and two days later when I went to collect
Choci I was totally and completely unprepared for the vision that met my eyes
and even less prepared, if that was possible, as to how on earth to handle him
or care for him.
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| Choci's "scaffolding" |
I needn’t have worried,
Choci was totally non-plussed by the metal scaffolding that had become his rear
end. It was in place to hold his hips, and the pins inside his hips were in place
whilst the bones fused and healed.
To
watch him use a litter tray was indeed a sight to behold and he never once got
so much as a drop on his bedding, he turned out to be the sweetest most
adorable youngster and I never regretted the fact we had been able to give him
a second chance.
Our next big milestone was
allowing him out of his cage, first for a few minutes then for longer and
longer as his muscles got stronger. Again we thought this might be a problem
for him but the problem was ours, he wasn’t allowed to jump, unfortunately for
me he always became conveniently deaf when I told him this and I had to watch
him like a hawk.
The scaffolding came off
after about seven weeks, he hardly seemed to notice, and in fact the only thing
that ever seemed to bother him about his accident was the blue tape he had on
one of his injured legs for a couple of weeks. He would spend all night pulling
it off only for me to put it back on in the morning, perhaps blue just wasn’t
his colour.
It wasn’t long before his
fur was growing back, and he was behaving just like a normal healthy cat.
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| The collar of shame |
He was with us for about
four to five months before being re-homed to a lovely family who had just lost
their elderly black cat to old age and were desperate for a young black cat.
It was love at first
sight!
I do just very occasionally
bump into the lady when I’m shopping in her area and the last I heard, which
was a couple of years ago, he was still doing just fine.
We have so much to thank Noel for, without his amazing talent and generosity, Choci would never have had a second chance at a wonderful new life.
Choci proved what I’ve
always believed and why I’ve been involved in cat rescue for so many years ‘Give a cat half
a chance and it will grab it with all four paws.’
Blog written by Kay Middlemiss, Voluntary Neutering Officer, Cats Protection Camberley & District
