Tag: PurdueUniversityVeterinaryHospital

Margerumalia – Tabitha, Part 3

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – October 3, 2025

PHOTO: Debbie Margerum

When I left off last week, Tabitha had stepped on the metal plate to trigger the door spring and we whisked her off to Purdue Veterinary Clinic. Then we made the decision to bring her back and release her so she could go nurse her kittens somewhere out there in the woods.

We had decided to trust her to trust us. 

Now you’re caught up.

After feeding her the canned food with the stool softener, we lifted the cage door and she pulled back like the photo above from when she was captured. 

“C’mon, Tabby, we brought you back to feed your little ones. Go.” 

I pressed my finger against her backside through the bars of the cage and she dashed out, crossed the deck, and disappeared into the brush. 

“Just please come back, so we can give you more medicine.” 

A moment after she left I realized that I had touched her for the first time since she was born over two years ago. In the past she had been willing to touch her nose to my finger, and I’d settled for “butterfly kisses” from her whiskers but I always wanted to pet her. She was soft and furry, of course, and a little bit scrawny, but mostly I felt her warmth and the moment of connection that came with it. Interesting what your finger can tell you in a brief touch.

It was a bucket list moment. Brief but meaningful. 

God bless that cat, she’s returned to eat every morning since. And I know the medicine is working because I saw her in the neighbor’s yard a few days later when she lifted her tail to spew brown liquid generously across the grass. Sorry, Cindy.

The current conundrum (or cat-nundrum) is our need to catch her again to have the sutures removed. On Monday morning she sat by the cage staring at the food for twenty minutes hoping to get her daily bowlful, then gave up and left.

No food. No medication. Did we make a mistake by letting her loose? Or did we save her kittens? 

The vet checked her for lactation and was uncertain whether she was actively nursing because of the low amount of milk they could express. We chose to let her feed them if at all possible—these kittens we’ve never seen.

I started writing about this series of events two weeks ago with “Fear of the Unknown,” and we’re still fearing the unknown. A reflection of our times, isn’t it?

Meanwhile I finished writing the adventure of the two girls in The Most Amazing Museum of Chicago and got them safely away from The Great Chicago Fire. More unknowns ahead for me and my characters!

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Margerumalia – Tabitha, Part 2

Eric Margerum

Newsletter – September 26, 2025

In the picture above, Tabitha waits patiently outside the trap.

“I can wait here all day,” she seems to say. “How about you?”

“Just go in, Tabby, so the vet can help you.” 

It was a game of chess that could only continue if she made the next move. 

As I wrote last week in “Fear of the Unknown,” Tabby had what looked like a piece of raw meat hanging out from under her tail. If we ignored it and it got infected she’d probably die, as would the three-week old kittens she had nested somewhere in the woods.

On the phone, I asked the vet how often three-week old kittens needed to feed. The answer: “They need to nurse every few hours.”

We had replaced the food holder in the cage with something much smaller. Something that would require her to step on the metal plate and trigger the door to shut. 

“Nice fresh canned food, Tabitha,” we murmured from indoors.

After forty-five minutes of waiting, she entered the cage. She stepped on the plate and the door slammed shut. It was GO time! 

My wife and I had prepared for this moment. An old towel to cover the cage and another one under it. We didn’t know if Tabby would scared-pee or, as the expression goes, get pissed off. No problem with that, thankfully.

We got her to the Emergency Vet Care at Purdue University where she refused to cooperate. She’d never been touched by a human being! They had to put her under just to examine at her. 

I’ve heard of a prolapsed uterus after childbirth, but I’d never heard of a prolapsed colon. Apparently it’s not uncommon with outdoor cats who have worms. Inside the cat’s guts things can get so backed-up that a cat will strain enough to push out part of the colon. That was the “raw meat” we saw under Tabby’s tail. 

While Tabitha was asleep, they restored the colon and used sutures to hold it in place. Non-dissolving sutures that encircled the “tube” of the colon. She would need to eat food with stool softener to have successful poops. They told us to bring her back in two weeks to have the sutures removed.

I’ve found that being a pet owner, a home owner, a car owner, and a parent, comes with a lot of choices and responsibilities. Not to mention a thorough education in how things work.

If we took Tabby back home and let her go, would she ever trust us again? Would she return to eat the medicated food? If we kept her in captivity we could make sure she did. But if we didn’t let her go, the newborn kittens would starve to death.

We decided to trust her to trust us. 

Before releasing her, we fed her medicated food inside the cage and then we opened it up to let her go.

Next Week: Part Three

TTFN

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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles