Boxing Day and Leo's back!

In the name of Allah, most gracious, most merciful.

 

celery seeds

Boxing Day.

Jumuah Mubarak. I still think of this day as Boxing Day, I wonder why? Early morning I could hear the Wolverine sneezing – he has been a bit offish, chewing on plants, a little bit bilious sommer on the solaah mat. But today he seems upbeat dashing around the garden, creeping up on the canopy poles, hiding when we call out and clap our hands - so we leave him be.

At the breakfast table Abu and I are rubbing dried seed heads of celery stalks to harvest as many celery seeds as possible. I look for little containers and find a few but it is already filled with seeds. No labels. So we play the guessing game – this looks like onion seed but is it brown or red. This is definitely poppyseed. This looks like rocket but it could be cabbage seeds. Abu looks sheepish – where’s the fun if it were all labelled?

The cellphone is ringing somewhere in the house, obviously under the pillow where it belongs. I get the kids to scramble for it saying it may be the vet of the Peoples Dispensary for Sick Animals. And what do you know? It is. The vet called to say Leo is ready to come home but he has suffered nerve damage to the limb. Nerve damage se voet. Does he not know we shall massage it with the last drops of zam zam and lots of duah and exercise? We are just so opgemaak he is coming home and resolve that limp or not he is out kitty kat and we will give him lots of hugs and cuddles. In fact when we could not get him to calm down and rest in the basket the other day, my daughter placed the basket on her desk next to her bed and put on a movie and he quietened down, so lots of movies while he lies at the edge of the bed – just not Madagascar.

My daughter rushes to shower and put on a pretty dress, the rest start cleaning up. Tongue in cheek I say “he must be naar of hospital food, so hows about we do a snoek braai, some pan-fried prawns lightly spiced, a saucer of full creamed milk and what should we do for dessert?” “Not funny Mommy!” “I did air out the basket and wash his blankie!” ha ha. Leo will be coming home a day earlier and we are hoping that it will be a good reunion with his brother. “just no taking him to dark dingy places in the garden!”

Plant food and label your seed jars.

Yasmine

Later this morning



home sweet home



At 11 the Leo came home with a whole contraption attached to his upper limb, Alhamdulillah! The first thing we did was to introduce the brothers to get comfortable with each other. Leo has this startled look but as soon they could, they licked and purred, we gave them two bowls with snacks to break bread together.

And then the hard part. Leo is supposed to be in a room that does not cause any obstruction to the contraption on his limb. It is not supposed to knock against anything or the stiches loosen . He cannot be too boisterous or the break might not heal. Almost like a prison hospital but with many nurses. So we started to clear out all chairs, ottoman and table – anything he can jump on. We will have to take Wolverine out from time to time wanting to frolic and jump round too much. So we figured if we let them fall asleep separately we can let them sleep next to each other curled up and secure.

salaam brother

The Leo is happy to be home smelling everything trying to sidle up against things, on his good side of course. Ideally if we had a huge cage it would be better but we don’t so we have to make use of what we have, follow the regimen of tablets and cleaning the wound and in 4 weeks’ time everything will come off inshaAllah! We are so relieved to have him back healthy besides his injury. His coat is shaven where they operated but the rest is glossy. Lots of patience is needed but more from Leo’s side. InshaAllah I hope he heals completely who knows anything is possible with Allah! RIght now he is quiet watching movies.

A huge shukran to the PDSA for the work they do for the community, for their love, support and compassion and just being there in Leo’s pain and doing their utmost to save his limb. Compliments of the season.

Plant food and donate generously to the Peoples Dispensary for Sick Animals.

Yasmine