Back-to-school shopping with Adrian, for gym clothes and shoes, socks and underwear, and trousers.

He’s still got that skinny pre-teen body, but size 41.5 feet. So we shop for clothes in the kids’ department, socks in the men’s one, but shoes in the ladies’ because men’s shoes are too wide.

Adult gym shoes are about twice the price of kids’ shoes. And I can’t even count on them lasting through to the end of the school year before he outgrows them.

We’re taking turns keeping Nysse company throughout most of the day. Spoiling him, perhaps. But when he is not allowed to even walk around in the house, much less go outdoors, and the only alternative is sitting in his cage, then taking him out for cuddles doesn’t feel like spoiling him.

He spends a lot of time asleep. He did so even before the injury, and I learned that cats can sleep up to 16 hours a day. Now it feels like he sleeps even more. But I also get the impression that he might be half awake at night when he has to be in his cage, sleeping with one eye open, and only relaxes properly when he’s out of it.

It’s like having a baby, all over again. Luckily only for six weeks.

He spends almost all day sleeping on me or next to me, where I sit and work on my laptop in the sofa. When I put him away in the cage so that I can eat lunch, he’s all pitiful mewls and sad eyes.

He didn’t much mind the cone initially, but is becoming less and less fond of it.

The care instructions for Nysse’s post-surgery period are intense. Three kinds of medications, each on different schedules and in different fiddly formats, plus physical therapy. I have detailed daily checklists and schedules to make sure I don’t miss anything.

There’s an opioid to be applied on the mucous membranes of the mouth, which I find rather tricky to apply, and easiest to do if he’s mostly asleep. There’s an NSAID suspension to be given orally either directly or with food. And then one more painkiller in the form of little powder-filled capsules, of which he needs half a capsule daily, which has me dividing small mounds of a white powder into equal tiny parts. Weird experience.

The initial instructions had him on six-hourly doses of the opioid, so I got up at 3 o’clock at night to make that happen. But it seems to be making him way too lethargic and he has had very little appetite, which is most unlike him, so we’re tapering that down to eight-hour and then twelve-hour intervals already.

He may be eating less than usual, but he’s not picky about his food. I’ve mixed both the NSAID and the painkiller straight into some wet cat food, and he gobbled them down without batting an eye.

Nysse is at home and actually seems to be doing pretty well, all things considered.

He’s drugged to the gills, sleepy and lethargic and slightly wobbly on his legs. A big chunk of his body is shaved bare (as well as patches on his neck and both front paws, for IV ports and other things) and he has a big bandage on his right hip.

He’s calm and not distressed, and happy to be at home. He was reportedly very upset about getting in the cage when it was time to go home, but quieted down when he saw me, and didn’t complain at all during the car ride home. Now he’s been settling into his cage, and greeting the family.

The cage that Eric built has enough room for him, his litter box, his feeding station, and a few soft blankets – and the occasional human, to keep him company.

Nysse’s operation went well, according to the surgeon, but he needs to stay at the hospital until tomorrow.

Once he’s home, he’s been prescribed six weeks of rest. Above all, no jumping whatsoever, and no going up or down stairs. Since all our rooms have furniture that he absolutely would jump on, and removing the furniture is not an option, the only alternative is a cage.

The standard solution, according to the vet, is to build a temporary cage out of grates meant to be used for compost bins. We tied four grates together, and it truly looked like a cage. It was hard to imagine having Nysse stay in there for six weeks. But since the grates cost next to nothing, Eric went back and bought more, and constructed something of an indoor cat run. It’s still going to be a prison, but – at three times the size – a much nicer one than the original version.

And of course he won’t need to be in there all the time. We can take him out of there, and cuddle with him in the sofa or on the floor, as long as we keep him under close supervision to make sure there’s no jumping going on.

Nysse came home yesterday evening! Unfortunately he seemed to be quite badly hurt, and wasn’t using his hind legs. He dragged himself into the house, flopped down on the carpet, and cried. No blood and no visible injuries, so I’m guessing he’s been hit by a car and broken something. Such a brave cat, to drag himself home with broken bones. I’m glad he didn’t just go hide in a bush and give up. No wonder it took him a few days to make it back.

He ate a large meal and then slept. I woke up at half past four to go the bathroom, and couldn’t see him anywhere. Made some noise looking for him, and he crawled out from behind some furniture. I guess he wanted a safe little cave to hide in. Then we cuddled until just past seven, and drove him to a veterinary hospital as soon as they opened.

Hours later, he’d gotten heavy-duty painkillers, and been examined and x-rayed. The poor kitty has a fractured pelvis. With the painkillers he finally got some proper rest, and we left him at the hospital for surgery tomorrow morning. We should get to bring him home tomorrow evening or the morning after that. And then he has four to six weeks of cage rest ahead of him, for recovery.

Nysse still hasn’t come home yet. It’s been three nights and three days already. Now we’ve printed a whole bunch of flyers to put in people’s mailboxes. The photo shows my sketch map of what streets I’ve covered.

I’m really worried about him now. He hasn’t gotten lost in a long time – he knows the neighbourhood well by now.

My mood swings based on who I last listened to. People on the internet say that if an adult cat doesn’t come home, it’s most often because they’ve gotten trapped somewhere – basement, garage, shed, etc. Especially now during the vacation period, there’s a risk that he got into some new place and then got locked in and the humans left. That would be a horrible experience for Nysse. Or he could have been hit by a car. That’s not an unlikely end for an outdoors cat.

And then I talk to a neighbour or a dog walker passing by, and hear stories of how their cat was once gone for three weeks and came home perfectly unharmed, and my hopes rise again. Maybe he has just gone wandering.

Also, I’ve had three more calls and messages from kind neighbours who’ve spotted gray cats, and found out that there are at least two more all-gray cats in the neighbourhood, who look remarkably similar to Nysse. One just two blocks away, and one about 800 metres from here. At a little bit of a distance even I was unsure whether I was looking at Nysse or not. Up close, unfortunately, it wasn’t him.

Out looking for Nysse. We’ve posted in the local Facebook group, and got a tip from a few streets away that an all-gray cat had been spotted. Didn’t find him.