Greatcoat - work starts

WARNING

The following entry contains information some reader may find extremely upsetting and distressing, which you may want to skip.
This I have put under a spoiler button.

I have only now been able to think back about these events, but I want to share them for anyone who understands my love of cats.

So in the continuity of making my Greatcoat, Let’s Kill Hitler has just been screened, and I now know everything I need to know in preparation to make my coat.

So as The Doctor checks his watch, he sees it’s time to start cutting cloth!

The fabric I have sourced is a superb heavyweight cotton moleskin, comparable to the Malabar I use for Tennant Coats.

Since I have worked the pattern out carefully, I can plough straight through to get everything cut and ready for making up. You can see me cutting the fronts (see right) and the backs (see below).

There are lots of other bits to cut, so once I have them all done I can look at beginning to put it all together tomorrow.

Now, it was at this point that I came down on Monday morning to make breakfast and feed the cats (we have four). Everyone was milling around, trying to catch my eye for some food - except our ginger tom, Chester, who was sitting on his favourite cushion in the lounge, and was frankly looking a little odd. He slowly turned his head towards me as I came into the room, as if trying to say ‘I don’t feel well’. . . .

The story of Chester: 

Our concerns quickly grew as he showed no interest in eating and was becoming increasingly listless and limp.

This was not the best day for this to happen - I am NOT blaming him - it just happened to be a public holiday in the UK and my local vets was closed for the long weekend. We knew he needed urgent medical care, so we rushed him to the Royal Vetenry College not far from us, where they gave him the care he needed. Having been told we had got him them just in time, we left after an hour or so, confident he was being well looked after and reassured he would be nursed back to health. We returned home, shell-shocked.

Trying to prevent my mind from running away with things, I refocused on making the coat, but I was not in a frame of mind to document the work. I think you can forgive me just this once.

My work progressed well until late afternoon we had a call that we should return to the RVC. There we found that Chester's condition had deteriorated and he was now in an incubator, hooked up to ECGs and the like.

We discussed his condition further with the doctor caring for him, and it was not good news.

The diagnosis was that he had a blocked bladder. This affects male more than female cats, and often in overweight cats. Natural crystals that form become united with loose cells from the intestinal track, and these block the narrow pipework leading from the bladder. Once blocked the levels of electrolytes in the cat’s system go through the roof, causing secondary organ failures.

It was starting to look as though he would have a slim chance of recovery, and if he did he would be severely affected, requiring a long recovery period. While discussions were heading in only one direction, a nurse interrupted us, asking for us to return to his bedside right away.
In the time we had been chatting he was starting to show some signs of awareness and his heart rate notably increased as I positioned myself in his eyeline. His ears twitched as I said his name and he was trying to raise his head.
This was almost more heart-rending than the discussion we had just been having. We HAD to give him the chance he deserved, so requested his care continue through the night and we would convene again in the morning, unless his condition changed.

Now dazed and perplexed we returned home to a subdued house. It was difficult to sleep and impossible to think about the coat now.

We were awoken at 1.30am by a call from the RVC asking us to return as Chester was starting to deteriorate at an alarming rate. There by 2am, we could see it was becoming increasing desperate. His blood pressure was unreadable; his heart rate low; his breathing shallow and slow. The difficult decision had been made for us.

At 2.30am, wrapped in a warm fur blanket, his paw in my hand and his eyes looking deep into me, he slipped painlessly away, only five years old.

We returned home, Chester still wrapped in his blanket.
Not knowing where to put him, I placed him on top of his cushion in the lounge.

In the morning I returned to find that a orchid, which sits on the window ledge just above where Chester sat, had dropped a flower. It had landed on top of him.

Chester was buried in our garden, the base of the hole lined with he cover from his favourite cushion, along with some of his personal things. I covered him in a towel and placed the orchid flower on the top.

Farewell my little boy. We shan’t forget you. Promise.

Work on the Greatcoat was now very much on hold.