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| Blacky: The Miracle Baby. |
Hope is a powerful feeling which works like a double edged
sword. It lets you hold on to the last strands of sanity during perilous times
by placing you on the road to a miracle and when things don’t work out as planned,
it makes you feel as if you’ve taken a fall off a cliff and plunged into the
abyss. In this article; I’m going to take the reader to the heart of a miracle
by narrating the story of my eight month old kitten that took a fall from the
terrace of an eight story apartment building onto concrete ground with nothing
in between to break her fall and yet through an incredible stroke of miraculous
luck; she survived the ordeal!
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| Kiara. |
Serendipity is central to my story underlying a train of
disasters that was soon to ensue the calamitous state of affairs I was to find
myself in. It all started one evening when I found a cadaverous little kitten, all
dressed in black with fiery iridescent eyes on the staircase of my fire exit.
The kitten looked scraggy, emaciated and famished and so out of the goodness of
my heart I took her in and nourished her back to health. It was not long before
my entire family fell in love with her and decided to raise her as our own and with
matrilineal superiority raining down our throats decided to name her ‘Blacky’.
At this juncture it is imperative that I mention that I have another cat called
Kiara; which is a cross betwixt a Turkish-van cat and a Burmese cat. Kiara is gargantuan
when compared to other cats and at first she didn’t take too well to Blacky as
she would at the slightest provocation hiss and smite at her. Impish Blacky, the boisterous of the two would never shy away from
a confrontation and would do her best to curdle Kiara’s blood by pouncing on
her from every nook and corner of the house. It was incidents like this that
caused Kiara to become more prudent with her perambulations around the house
and such playful banter broke Kiara’s self-effacing bulwark and pretty soon
every morning the two would engage themselves in wrestling matches with the
intent to out maneuver the other to the ground. After an interlude of two
months the two seemed inseparable; as their lives became so entwined that they would eat, stare out the window, play and sleep
together.
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| Blacky & Kiara sleeping together. |
I’m sure one has heard of taking a
dog for a walk but it would seem ludicrous when I tell people that I take my
cats out for a walk. Every morning at the crack of dawn I would take Kiara and
Blacky up to my terrace and let them play for about an hour when everyone was
asleep. Kiara would spend time wallowing in the dust and Blacky would give
wings to her wildest desires of chasing down pigeons. This became the order of
the day and at times when I was lazy to wake up; the two girls would pester my
mother to open the door and her acquiescent nature would always cater to the
need of the girls.
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| Kiara & Blacky: Two sides of the same coin. |
On the 23rd of November which happened to fall on
Diwali I was a bit perturbed about sending the girls to the terrace and after a
horrifying spasm of meowing I decided to let them go. I played with them on the
terrace for about half an hour after which I decided to retire to my room and
spend my time more judiciously by firing up my laptop and ironing out a wrinkle
on the internet. After an intervening period of twenty minutes Kiara came back
from the terrace and by the look on her face I knew she was trying to tell me
something. She looked agitated and going by the tenor of her purr I knew she
was telling me that something on the terrace had gone horribly wrong. I
immediately ran up the stairs…
It took me ten minutes to search every nook and corner of the
terrace and I found no trace of Blacky. I knew she had a thing for pigeons as
she caught one couple of days ago on the staircase. I decided to reconnaissance the terrace including the staircases that led to
other buildings and she was nowhere to be found. There was one last location to
look and that was down a vent which was open from the top with a semi broken
wooden plank and from there on it was a free-fall down eight stories with
nothing to break ones fall. My heart was pounding when I approached the vent.
It was blacky’s favorite location from which she observed the pigeons. I
approached the vent with a throbbing heartbeat and looked all the way down. One
cannot stem the flood of emotions that ran through my spine and brought me to
my knees when I saw blacky lying down in a state of stupor. My worst
trepidations have finally come true.
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| The nine story high vent through which Blacky fell. |
Blacky had fallen from the 9th floor onto solid
concrete with nothing in the middle to break her fall. I was aghast as words
seemed to echo in a void and I was trying to get myself to call out to her. Ten
seconds later I managed to utter the words ‘Blacky’ and in an instant she
called back. I was unsure if I actually heard her reply or it was just my mind
playing tricks on an emotionally over-whelmed soul and so I called out to her
yet again and instantly came the lightning fast reply. I knew she was alive and
barely holding onto life by a miraculous shoestring of a chance. She had severe
internal bleeding which I could make out with every call. I knew it was only a
matter of time before she drowned in her own blood and this is where my
emotions got the best of me and I was on a collision course with a train of
disasters. I was unable to maintain my equanimity in such a situation and my
inability to temper patience almost cost Blacky her life. Firstly I knew not
the location to which the vent opened up to and secondly I had to find the
liftman to pinpoint Blacky’s location. I ran down the stairs and brought the
liftman up to show me the location. Then after a brief stint at guessing her
location the two of us ran down to get Blacky. I knew I was losing out on
crucial time. I found Blacky on the ground and she recognized me instantly. I
picked her up with my hands and ran home to a surprised mother who began to
breakdown as soon as she saw Blacky.
Without taking our phones and wallets, my mother and I sat in the car
and drove to a nearby veterinary hospital. My father told us that he will
finish locking up the house and will meet us at the hospital. The situation was
deteriorating as Blacky was now sprouting blood from both her orifices (mouth
and anus). The white shirt that I was wearing at that time was drenched in
blood and that only added to the chaos and bedlam within the car. Upon reaching
the hospital the security guard came up to us and told us that the hospital was
closed on account of Diwali celebrations and that the doctor had just left the
premises a few minutes prior to our arrival. And so we went back home to see if
father was still there; all the time losing out on precious time to save her
life.
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| Blacky: First day after the fall. |
When we reached home we found it locked. We had no phone and
money and so my mother went to our neighbors’ house and requested them for the
use of their phone. She spent ten minutes trying to get my father on the line
and to no avail as the call wasn’t getting through. With every passing second I
knew Blacky’s chances of surviving was slipping away. There was another
veterinary clinic about twenty minutes from our house and none of us knew the
way. With no phones and wallets in hand we knew it was going to be a stab in
the dark as we had to take the gamble with directions to give Blacky a fighting
chance and so we plunged heedlessly into the twenty minute drive and all this
while Blacky was throwing up blood. She was on the verge of dying and now she
began to slip in and out of consciousness.
Our frustration peaked with every misguided direction and
with Blacky struggling to hold onto life I allowed frustration to slip sense
from tongue and began to hurl tirades of abuses at every wrong turn. I then looked
up at the firmament with hopes of receiving some sort of recourse and my
prayers were soon answered when we reached the hospital. I passed my father by
the waiting room as I rushed Blacky into the emergency ward. Blacky was
immediately put on IV drips and the doctors injected her with several coagulants.
I don’t know how long Blacky was lying on the concrete floor after her fall and
the amount of time that we lost in getting her to the hospital; but the
momentousness of the occasion was lost in the welter of a thousand mistakes and
just as Blacky slipped in and out of life, a variety of anxious thoughts ran
through my head. Way to follow a train of thoughts I said to myself. The situation
abounds in ironies as every decision of mine was wrong right from the start.
Firstly I should have gone with my gut instincts and not have allowed Blacky to
go to the terrace. Secondly while rushing her to the hospital I should have
taken twenty seconds out to grab my phone, had I done that I could have called
various hospitals to see which one was open and rushed Blacky to one well
within 10 minutes but instead I chose to let her languish on the verge of death
by gambling between two hospitals and my house for a good part of an entire
hour before getting her to the vet. I was now in the emergency room holding
Blacky down while the doc made a careful vet of her situation. My mind was now
a devil’s playground.
I was trying to figure out how Blacky managed to fall from
such a height and yet survive for so long? For over a month Blacky was prancing
on the terrace without ever so much as taking a minor fall and today she
plummeted down nine stories? She must have been instinctively observing the pigeons
as some acts cannot be avoided when stripped of choice and with the help of
some divine interpolation it hit me. It was Diwali! While she must have been
sitting comfortably on the edge of the vent; a cracker must have startled her
off the ledge and onto concrete ground. The screams within me rose to
earsplitting intensity as I had to watch the life drain out of this eight month
old kitten. It was by no stretch of imagination that an innocent creature
should deserve such a comeuppance. By now Blacky started convulsing violently
and I told myself it was only a matter of time before the inevitable end would
claim her life.
The doctor’s tone invited no discussion and I couldn’t get
myself to look at Blacky in such a dismal state. Equally disheartening was
looking out the emergency door at my parents who were worried out of their
wits. I looked at the doctor and his orderlies that were holding onto Blacky’s
convulsing body as despair was painted on everyone’s countenance and the doctor
sketched a melancholy picture with his carefully chosen words. “Chances are feeble”!
It was gut-wrenching to hear those words fall from his mouth but I knew he was
talking out of experience. In ghostly outline, I saw the beginnings of the end.
Blacky’s story is a tale of caution. In the kaleidoscope of
shifting conditions what dose of a dangerous environment can be safe except one
where people go out of the way to ensure that all construction work is complete
and out of bounds to passersby. What if Blacky’s fall was replaced by a Child
who fell while playing on the terrace? Such vents should be sealed off with
perforated lids but as the saying goes, it is human to err! Humans with all
their supposed superior ingenuity cannot foresee and forestall. They can only
swing into action after a tragedy has ensued!
After about an hour there was a tantalizing glimpse as life
began to seep into Blacky as she lifted her head to look at me. In the
lightning flashes that followed the thunder of discontent I was amazed at
Blacky’s resoluteness to live. She now began to shudder and kick about
violently as it took two orderlies and the doctor to hold her down. She was
soon dowsed with a muscle relaxant. The amount of strength she could muster
immediately after such a fall was baffling! The doctor seemed bamboozled by her
resilient nature and asked me if she really fell from the terrace. Such a fall
would have instantly killed a human but here was an eight month old kitten that
managed to pep death by the smallest of margins and pull off a miraculous
escape. Eight hundred rupees read the bill of fare presented to us by the
doctor. Emotions ran high when I looked at the figure. At present times what
goods of value can one really purchase with eight hundred rupees? To us; the
amount did no justice to what we were about to get in return. We bought Blacky
extra time to live out and no amount in the world could match her price. The
doctor later disclosed to us that the clinic was actually closed for the day
and that he had arrived just to perform a prayer on this auspicious day and was
planning to leave in the next fifteen minutes had we not arrived. We thanked
him profusely for his services.
We took Blacky home after her IV drip came to an end. The
doctor warned us that she has suffered extensive internal bleeding and the extent
of her internal injuries is yet unknown and that her condition was extremely
critical and we should not have our hopes set on her recovery. I knew in my
heart that Blacky was a fighter and if there was ever a chance for a kitten to
survive a fall from the terrace of an eight story building onto concrete
ground, then it was Blacky who could make that happen. That evening we placed Blacky
on a mattress on the floor and kept checking on her. We kept an eye on her
breathing pattern which was oscillating between
a slow and quick rhythm. After an hour she disappeared under the bed and crawled
all over the room, unable to restrict her
movement we let her be and locked the door. When I was on my jog that evening
my mother called me and asked if I placed Blacky on the bed before I went for
my run. I would never have done that for fear of her falling off it and
injuring herself even more. But there she was on the bed, fast asleep. We were
all astonished as to how she got herself up there. We knew the fall definitely
broke many bones in her body but were unsure of the number as we had no x-ray
to confirm it. Breathing that evening was difficult for all of us as the air
was polluted by smoke from the Diwali celebrations. Blacky thus contracted
respiratory infection which developed into cold, cough and fever. Animals
including humans with internal injuries perish due to infections they contract
after surviving such an ordeal. Blacky was still bleeding internally and blood
now began to enter her lungs. She was coughing relentlessly and the blocked
nose from the cold didn’t make it any easier on her. We gave her a little bit
of honey that stopped her cough and soon she was asleep. That evening my mother
and I took shifts at sleeping as one of us had to constantly keep an eye on
her. Because Blacky was kept in a room at the far corner of our house I kept
her door ajar which enabled us to peek into the room without disturbing her
sleep. By morning I was extremely fatigued and I inadvertently slipped into a
deep sleep.
My mother was reduced to tears when she opened the door next
morning as she found Blacky out of bed and right by the side of the door crying
for one of us to come over and talk to her. So that day we decided to buy an
open bed for her to lie in and placed it on my bed. That way she can be a part
of our lives while we go about our daily activities. Love, care and attention
were exigencies of the day and vital for her recovery. Taking care of Blacky
was by no means a cinch as one of the family members had to stay by her side at
all times; fastidiously serving her every need such as spoon feeding her, cleaning
her, giving her medicine and carrying her to her toilet bowl. She is as much a
family member as my mom, dad or Kiara and in my heart I knew for certain that
Blacky will make a full recovery as long as she doesn’t slip into depression,
hence we did all can to stay by her side and pamper her to the zenith!
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| Blacky's new open bed. |
There she was lying on a baby’s nappy pad comfortably
ensconced in her new bed, looking out the window at the birds that flew by. In
the midst of it all Kiara was feeling a bit left out and she began to dabble in
what I like to call ‘ADS’ (attention drawing syndromes). Kiara would run all
over the house, call out persistently in a fit of jealous rage to draw our attention away from Blacky. Kiara right
from the start was recluse by nature and now started developing an affinity to spending
time with my parents.
My parents and I scoured the internet, sifting through
articles and blog posts hoping to find answers to ameliorate Blacky’s
situation. While we found quite a bit of paraphernalia on
how to handle the situation and what drugs to administer we never came across a
case study to which we could relate Blacky’s situation. For four days Blacky
refused to eat cat food and drink water and hence we were forced to take her to
the vet to administer IV drips and various coagulant drugs as her bleeding was
a recurring issue. She was inoculated with a high dosage of antibiotics to
battle the infection and the doctor told us that the fever was not a good sign and
portended the oncoming invasion of infections. That day we got her blood work
done and the report showed a little bit of liver damage but imperatively showed
that her vitals were fine. Since the liver is the only organ capable of
regeneration, the doctor said that it wasn’t something that would neither give
us sleepless nights nor cause her great
distress. We were then asked to take her to a Pet Lab; the only one on this
side of Delhi to get her X-ray done.
The people at the lab were cavalier to say the least and were
going about their duty in an extremely nonchalant fashion. It just shows that only
a bare beginning has been made in the way our society treats our animals. To
quote Gandhi ji ''The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated". And judging by the way the lab conducts its business; there are several
miles to go before we can consider ourselves a sanctimonious nation.
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| Blacky's X-ray showing her broken pelvis and femur. |
The X-rays were out and going by the horrified expression on
the physicians face I knew there were somber times ahead. I looked at the X-ray,
it showed multiple fractures on the Pelvis and her Femur. The Lab physician
told me that her entire left femur was broken including her pelvis at multiple
locations and that my doctor would advise the next course of action. So I took
The X-rays back to the doc and the doc told us that there was nothing more he
could do and if Blacky recovers from her infection, the bones will have to heal
naturally. Looking at the X-ray I knew that natural healing without surgically
reparation of the femur would maim her for the rest of her life and when I
brought this to the doctor’s notice he told me that a surgery would be
detrimental to her and we have to leave it to her ability to heal naturally. I
knew I had to find another doctor as I had overstayed my welcome with the
current one. And so the next day we took her to the hospital which was actually
closed on the day Blacky had suffered the fall. The doctor looked at the
reports and told us that the chances of Blacky surviving are very slim and to
add to that she is not eating on her own. I was caught between a rock and a
hard place when we began contemplating about taking the road to euthanasia. I
felt a conflict between my blood and my brain as Blacky was too dear to lose
and at the same time I didn’t want her to suffer. We spoke to many experts over
the phone and everyone told us that her recovery is most likely out of the
picture and we had to deal with the hard truth. We had to let her go!
It was a sobering fact to see Blacky eat on her own and pass
her stools the next day. By some divine touch she seemed to have been
invigorated and was now brimming with life. We immediately got down to
pampering her and feeding her with her favorite food, freshly chopped blood
soaked mutton liver. She gorged on fifteen pieces and went back to sleep. We
took her to the hospital again and another doctor examined her x-rays and
recommended that we speak to the surgeon and request him to perform a surgery
on her femur at the earliest. We met the Surgeon and got his approval for the
surgery scheduled for the very next day. He gave us a piece of iron rod and asked
us to buy one with a similar dimension. I looked everywhere and found that only
one lady within my locality was selling it for Rs. 1500 apiece. She had not the
rod on her but promised to arrange it by the evening. While buying medicines
for Blacky I asked the owner of the pharmacy if I could get a piece of rod
elsewhere and he duly gave me the address of the shop and the rod of the same
shape, size and material was priced at only Rs. 100. It just goes to show the
lengths people are willing to go without qualms of moral conscience to make
extra money. Now I had the rod with me and while showing it to the doc, an
orderly barged into the room and informed the doctor that the next day was
declared a holiday by the government and that Blacky’s surgery was postponed by
a day.
On closer examination of the X-ray and my diligent
observation of Blacky’s sitting posture revealed contrasting results. Blacky
was Lying comfortably on her left femur and pelvis while the X-ray showed that those
were the bones that were completely broken. Either the X-ray was wrong or
Blacky was going against the laws of pain. Even while standing Blacky pivoted
on her left leg instead of the right one. I was skeptical of the X-ray and two
days later just before the surgery was to take
place I asked the doc to carefully examine the leg that was broken. After a
thorough examination of both her hind legs, my hunch was proved right. Her
right pelvis and femur were broken contrary to the criminally inaccurate X-ray
which revealed the opposite.
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| Blacky's X-ray after the surgery. |
A new and different hand was on the tiller as the doctor
successfully operated on Blacky. The X-ray machine at the hospital was not in a
functioning state and we rushed Blacky immediately after the surgery in her
anesthetized state back to the pet
lab that made the horrendous error with her earlier X-ray, to take yet another
X-ray to ensure if the rod had been inserted properly. Standing by the reception counter was an infuriated version
of myself because of their prior error with her X-ray but I was compelled to
perform a delicate balancing act by both condemning and condoling their
procedures as I knew I had no other option but return to them for yet another
X-ray after a months’ time before getting her rod removed.
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| Blacky's new cage to restrict her movement after the surgery. |
A new complication arose when Blacky started passing blood
along with her urine. We were alarmed and we immediately took a sample of her
urine back to the pet lab to
have it examined. When the reports came in, we were thrilled to know that
she hadn’t contracted any infection and that her kidneys were functioning
rather remarkably well. On the question of blood in her urine, we were yet
dumbfounded. We later attributed
the blood flow to the trauma that she suffered from her fall.
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| Cats are extremely clean creatures. Despite her broken bones Blacky refuses to come out of her toilet bowl without covering her stools with mud. |
There are tantalizing glimpses on the 8th of
November that suggested that Blacky was on the
course to a full recovery as she ate and drank
on her own. I would like to share a small message from my family to all those
who have pets and are in the midst of experiencing a similar situation as we
have: We would request you to turn thoughts from unfortunate past as we must
look towards better days to come. Such memories will fade with time as do all that
are born out of misfortune. During the vortex of such struggles, especially
when one is reacting to constantly changing circumstances, we must remember
that one rarely is in the right frame of mind to consider carefully all the
ramifications of one’s decisions and we are here to do the best we can with
what little we know. The key to saving your loved one from the clutches of
death is love, comfort and constant attention. These along with medical treatment
can help lift your loved one from a dismal state to one filled with exuberance
and elan.
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| The Xray was taken a week before the rod was surgically removed. |
Blacky underwent a minor
surgery to have the rod that was lodged within her femur and pelvis removed on
the 28th of November. Since then she has recovered remarkably well
as she is running on all fours without ever so much as a minor limp.
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| It was not long before the naughty devil got back to her normal life filled with shenanigans and attempts at pestering Kiara to her wits end! |
The story has finally run
the course of its life and we are more than pleased to see it culminate with a
happy ending. Blacky, the lucky baby that found herself a home within our
family and dodged the clutches of death to become one among the elite group of
immortals to have survived a fall from grace and into our hands as a
reincarnated miracle baby that survived the odds!
