Our Cat Thunder
Thunder literally walked into our lives during the winter of 2013. Since we live in a trailer, we'd often hear one critter or another scurrying around underneath it, but at that time I wasn't used to it because we'd never lived in a trailer before. Hearing a bunch of banging noises coming from beneath the floor at odd hours of the night was a little disconcerting for me, but generally stomping on the floor would get whatever was hiding under the trailer to quite down.
The night I met Thunder was one of the coldest I had yet to experience since we'd moved to Arkansas from Louisiana. It was so cold that I had been sleeping with four comforters on my bed. I was playing a mystery game on my laptop when the banging started up again, but this time it was moving in the direction of my window. Pausing my game I moved over to my window to see what had been making all the racket lately. I had pulled my curtain aside just in time to see Thunder sticking his head out from underneath the trailer and our eyes locked.
My first thought upon seeing him was that our other black cat, Stormy, had gotten out somehow. Since we live right next to a busy highway, I was scrambling to throw on my coat and shoes so I could get outside to catch her, all the while shouting at my parents that she had gotten out. I hadn't even made it to the porch steps when he was jumping up onto the porch and waiting at the front door.
It was at that point that I realized that he wasn't Stormy, but that didn't stop him from just waltzing in when I opened the door. He went straight to the water bowl while my mom was coming into the kitchen to inform me that Stormy was asleep on their bed.
She wasn't very happy when she first saw him because we already had three cats, two turtles and a Chihuahua. Now my mom isn't the type of woman to turn away a stray in freezing weather but she said repeatedly not to get attached to him because we couldn't afford another cat. If I'm being honest we've all said that at one point or another and seventy-five percent of the time it doesn't work and the twenty-five percent that it does is only because we quickly manage to find another home for them.
All of our other cats are girls and they were not happy when they saw him, which is probably why he wanted back out only a little over an hour later. He came back the next night however because it had started snowing and he wound up sleeping in my brother's room. This pattern continued for a couple of weeks before my mom finally caved and officially named him Thunder to go along with Stormy.
For the first few months Thunder would come inside during the night and then demand to go back outside right after breakfast. This stopped however when our neighbors' cat, Tigger, got run over, which was as upsetting to us as it was to them because he often visited us and stole dry cat food. The day Tigger was buried was the day Thunder became an unwilling indoor cat. Over the years he made several escape attempts, most of which we managed to prevent, but luckily the few times he manage to get out, he never strayed far from the trailer. In fact most of the time he would just go underneath it, but that was probably because we'd chase him and try to catch him.
He and Bowbow, our dog, got along really well and we would joke it was because he finally had a brother, feline or not, after living with three feline sisters for so long he needed a little male bonding. Stormy has always been timid and really only gets along with our youngest cat, Kilala, whose has an appetite that rivaled Thunder's, who was about twice her size. As for our oldest girl, Precious, well she's a four time mommy, Stormy coming from her third litter, who mainly keeps to herself ever since she lost one of her front legs. Thunder got in trouble more than once for picking on her, they all did, except for Bowbow.
During the daytime Thunder would often come into my room when he wanted to get away from the girls and would spend hours at the foot of my bed sleeping or climbing into my lap while I was reading and demanding my attention. He only ever slept in my room over night once, but he didn't seem to like my alarm clock because the next morning when it went off he jumped on top of me and started hollering at me until I turned it off.
Thunder lived with us for only five years, but if I'm being honest, it still feels like he was with us for much longer. I wish it had been longer.
We noticed in December that he was putting on a lot of weight, but it wasn't until mid to late January that we noticed that something might be really wrong. We took him to the vet on 1-25-18 and we were given bad news.
Thunder had FIV, feline immunodefiency virus, which is essentially AIDS for cats and the vet recommended putting him down. I did a little research on my own and found out a cat with FIV can at least live five years with the disease without showing any signs. Most of the information I found seemed to be outdated because most of it claimed that there wasn't much in the way of treatments until I stumbled across an article by Julia Szabo in which she talked about how she went through the same thing with her cat Tom. She mentions the drug, LTCI, which stands for lymphocyte T-cell immunomodulator and found a four page information PDF on it, which we showed to the vet when we took him back to the vet on 2-1-18.
Unfortunately, some of Thunder's organ's were already beginning to shut down and the treatment likely wouldn't help him at that point.
The last week we had Thunder, we were hyper aware of his behavior and it felt like things had snowballed after his diagnosis. He lost appetite to the point where he stopped eating all together. He didn't seem to have any energy and had trouble going to the bathroom.
It was hard to watch and we all broke down crying more than once. We don't know when Thunder contracted this disease, things could have been different if we'd caught it earlier.
So if you're a cat owner be sure to get a regular check up for your cat. If you suspect that your feline friend is sick for any reason, don't wait and take them to your local vet as soon as possible because it may make all the difference.
In loving memory of Thunder Cat Wilcox, the stray who stole our hearts. 2-1-18
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