back at the vet again

The black cat saw the vet today, for his final sign-off after his operation.  We were several minutes early, having allowed for traffic that might have been bad but wasn't, and the vet was running half an hour late, so we sat for some time in the waiting room, the cat wedged between us in his red wire basket, looking resigned.  Once in the consulting room, he obliged by marching around the floor to exhibit his gait, and we expressed our satisfaction with the outcome while the vet fretted that he had lost some muscle mass on that side and his knee still wasn't absolutely perfect.  As the Systems Administrator pointed out to console her, the S.A.'s knee was operated on several years ago at vast expense by a man at the Wellington Hospital, and that isn't absolutely perfect either.  The vet agreed that absolute perfection after the cat had totally detatched his cruciate ligament was never going to be achievable, and repeated that his outlook as regards arthritis were much better than if he'd simply had cage rest.  I thought his chances of ever speaking to us again were much better than if we'd gone down the cage route, and we thanked her and left with expressions of mutual satisfaction.

The cat has actually become noticeably friendlier since his accident.  This is slightly surprising, since I wouldn't have expected five visits to the vet in just over three months plus several weeks kept locked in the house to have improved his view of his human companions.  I can never quite believe it when in nineteenth century literature people's characters are suddenly improved by suffering.  Chuck Katy out of a swing and stick her in a wheelchair for a few years, that'll turn her from a noisy tomboy into a caring sensitive young lady with modest manners.  Drop a burning house on Mr Rochester's head and he'll discover his inner feminist.  However, the black cat, whose presence in the household has always been counted by whether either of us have seen him in the past two or three days rather than whether he was in for his tea, has become much fonder since his acccident and sticks around virtually all the time.

I was afraid I had scared him off this morning, just on the day we needed him to go to the vet, as he followed me into the garden while I was letting the chickens out of their house, and decided to make a mad dash past me at the exact moment that I threw away the water from the jug that had held their wet bread.  I hit him full on, and he ran away with the amount of panic and indignation you would expect from a cat whose owner has suddenly hurled a pint of starchy cold water over him.  I had to follow him empty-handed, apologising profusely, and coax him out from among the jerusalem artichokes.