A TRIP OUT FOR WILLUM !

Today we took our cat Willum to see the vet. About three days ago I was scratching his neck (it made a change from scratching Arthur’s) and I felt a nodule under my fingers. When I looked, it was what appeared to be a huge tick, but it was pink and not the usual purplish colour of a tick. As it was a weekend, I decided to take him to the vets today Monday. The appointment was for 4.10 and the cab that was to ferry us was booked for 3.50, all was well in the world. Well, not quite. Willum had gone AWOL.
Not one to miss up on fortuitous weather, he had scampered into the fields after breakfast, and was probably now fast asleep under a hedge, stretch out in the sunshine. He has done this before, worrying us that he has met an untimely end, and then wandering in for supper about ten o’clock at night!
Once he didn’t wander in at all, and three days later we found him weakly sticking his paw our from under an up and over garage door half way down the hill, but that’s another story.
At a quarter past three I phoned the vet and told the receptionist that Willum had gone walkabout, and probably, no most likely, wouldn’t return until after dark or in a thunderstorm, whichever was the soonest. She very kindly said that she would keep the appointment open till half past three, and would then give it to someone else if I hadn’t phoned to tell her otherwise. I laughed and thanked her, but told her not to hold her breath, and we’d see her next Monday (the first free appointment) Five minutes later, my other cat Emma came into the kitchen and asked to be let out into the garden, I unlocked and opened the back door, and there, sitting in the centre of the lawn and washing his nether regions, was Willum. Arthur rushed out and scooped him up, and I (with five minutes to spare), phoned the vets to tell her it was all on again!
The upshot of all this is, we made the appointment, it wasn’t a tick, and he has to go in on Monday morning for a little op and to send the lump to be analysed in case it’s something ‘nasty’. Andy (the vet) says that he doesn’t think it will prove to be serious, but he has to go down that path first. While Willum is ‘out for the count’ Andy is going to scale & polish his teeth and remove a bad one. One thing that surprised me, was that Willum is down with the vet as being almost 11 ½ years old, and I thought he was only 9 !
Since this entry is all about Willum, I felt his photo was appropriate.