A Chance Encounter

On Father's Day weekend, I was mowing Mom, and Papa Rich's yard as a surprise for Papa Rich. We are too poor to buy a gift, and I wanted to do something for him, so I figured he would be just as appreciateive for being able to go an extra week without having to mow (I would be). It was looking like it was about to storm, so I was trying to hurry and get the mowing done, also mom and Rich would be home soon and I wanted to have it done before they got home. I had made about 4 or 5 passes in the ditch in their front yard, and was coming up to the culvert and driveway when I noticed a movement in front of me. I looked and saw that it was a little kitty. It's eyes were just barely open. It was crawling towards the culvert as best as it could. I stopped the mower and picked him up. He had a really bad looking cut/laceration on his back at the base of his tail. I took him inside to show Helen. She just looked at him, and asked where in the world did you find that? I told her how I had found him in the ditch. I know he wasn't there when I started mowing because I would have either seen him or run over him. I believe someone tossed him out of their car since the cut on his back was so fresh. I told Helen we can't just let him die, we had to do something. I called Quailwood (a local animal hospital) and told the doctor what had happened. He asked if we wanted to keep him for ourselves or give him to the humane society. As any man in this situation would do, I said "hang on, I need to ask my wife." We weren't quite sure what to do, I mean we just found him and were thrown into the situation. After talking about it for a while, we decided we would keep him for now and see if we could "nurse him back to health". The doctor told us to put peroxide and neosporin on his wound and keep it clean. I went and got some baby kitty milk and a bottle from Wal-Mart. I had never bottle fed an animal before so it was definitely a learning experience for me and the cat. We both finally got the hang of it and he began to eat more and more. His wound wasn't looking so good though. I called the vet back and asked if we could bring him in for a check-up since I was off work until the evening. At his first vet visit, which was 4 days after we found him, he weighed 5 oz.!! The doctor put him on an antibiotic for 10 days and told us to keep cleaning his wound. He wasn't getting better after a few days, so Papa Rich took him back to the vet for us (I had to work). A different doctor looked at him this time, and said that his wound was infected pretty badly. He hadn't gained any weight, and it would be a struggle for him to survive. We needed to be prepared to put him down if it came to it because things didn't look good for him. The doctor put him on a stronger medicine and told us to keep him clean and fed. We needed to keep the kids away from him because they didn't know what kind of bacteria was infecting him, but it was dangerous. I thought about giving him to the animal shelter because I didn't want to risk my children's health to save a cat, but I figured I'd give him a few more days. He started looking better and becoming more active after a couple of days on the new medicine. He was also eating more. Papa took him to the vet again and the doctor was surprised at how well he was doing. His wound was healing nicely, and he was gaining weight. He now weighs 12 oz. We decided to name him Chance. It fits him considering the circumstances of how we found him. He is cute as can be and is becoming more playful. Sorry if I've rambled on too much. This is my first time blogging.