Unhappy Easter

[oloriel]

Well, for the most part it was a nice day, in spite of Felix' lack of sleep, several temper tantrums (probably caused in part by the lack of sleep, but also by insensitive relatives), and a persistent pain in my pelvis (not the labour sort -- the "pinched nerve" sort).

The evening ended pretty horribly, though.

We'd had a barbecue with two friends, R. and T.. While preparing the barbecue, we'd noted that our tenants left their driveway at their usual breakneck speed in their car, and then rushed up the hill also at their usual breakneck speed. As the word "usual" implies, this didn't give us cause for anything but rolled eyes. (There's a lot that I'd have to tell you as far as our tenants are concerned, but not now.)
A bit later, we heard 'náro mew a bit down the street. It was the sound he tends to produce when he's caught a mouse and wants to share his success without even putting down the catch first, i.e. sounding loud but pressed due to the full mouth. Again, this didn't give us cause for anything but jokes à la "Well, there's still heat in the barbecue, he can bring that mouse here if he wants". (He didn't. Also not unusual.)

However, when we decided to go for a short walk after dinner and came down the hill, we saw 'náro lying halfway across the road next to the tenants' driveway. He looked up at us and mewed again, without sounding distressed or anything. We talked about being waylaid by cats as we walked closer.
I'm not sure when everyone realised that something was wrong. I, and probably Jörg, realised when we were only three steps away and 'náro still didn't a) jump up or b) roll over to have his belly scratched. T. isn't a cat person and may not have noticed anything at that point. R. knows cats in general and our cats in particular and probably had misgivings, too.

We all kept on talking as if everything was fine - "Hey 'náro, you want to come along on our walk" - "Was your mouse tasty" - "Too lazy to get up, eh?" - and squatted down to pat him. Felix stroked his back very gently, which I praised (by now, Felix and the cats tend to get along quite well). 'náro still showed no clear signs of distress or pain, but neither did he snuggle and purr the way he normally does - he just lay there looking at us.
"I'm gonna put him up", Jörg announced, and lifted 'náro to his feet, and 'náro's rear end just collapsed right away. At this point, even T. must have realised that something was wrong.

My first thought was that 'náro might have had a run-in with a dog or fox, but there was no blood and no cuts, except for two holes in his legs - one tiny, the sort of injury that outdoor cats surrounded by other cats tend to have all the time. "Well that can't give him so much trouble," Jörg said.
"And the other one," I said, looking closer and... swallowing, "um, I can see right to the bone."

"WHAT?!" say T. and R.
"It's not broken or anything, but the leg is open and I can see a bone."

On the plus side, 'náro did curl his back toes when Jörg "tickled" the soles of his feet. On the minus side, well, something with his back and butt was clearly wrong, and even though that part of the leg pretty much just consists of skin, bone and sinew, normally the skin should cover the rest of it, right?
At this point, Jörg checked for emergency vet services. We half-expected that with our luck, the only available vet on Easter Sunday evening would be at the other end of the region, but it turned out that our usual vet was on call. Jörg had had two beers with his barbecue, but T. immediately volunteered to drive him there. When we put 'náro into his transport box, he spread his hind legs the way he always does (like most cats, he doesn't like the transport box), which was a bit reassuring.

An hour later, Jörg called. The vet had diagnosed a clear case of hit-and-run driving, resulting in a crushed pelvis and spine, and seen little hope for 'náro, "but of course you can take him to the pet clinic in Duisburg if you want." (The hole in the leg was just collateral damage that needed to be cleaned up and bandaged.) Long-suffering T. - and I repeat, he is not a cat person - was driving Jörg and 'náro to Duisburg now.

The emergency vet in Duisburg, when it finally was 'náro's, Jörg's and T.'s turn, was apparently somewhat more hopeful. 'náro could curl up his tail and twitch his feet, so the spine was clearly not "crushed" - apparently, it looked mostly intact in the x-ray - and the collapsed pelvis was broken cleanly "so it should be possible to stabilise that". The next day - today - their surgeon would have a look at 'náro and decide what to do. Jörg signed a slip of paper along the lines of "I am aware that this may be expensive, but please do whatever is reasonably necessary".

Now we're waiting for a phone call, which will either be "There's no point, you can come over to say your good-byes", or "He's out of the operating theatre, you can come over to pick him up".
God, how I hope for the latter.

It's also fun to live in the same house with the person who very likely ran over your cat (both vets agree that the likeliest cause of the injury is having been run over by a car wheel; there was only one other car driving up the hill during the whole time, and that was going a lot more slowly), and either didn't even notice or doesn't even care. Not.