Thursday, February 09, 2006

My Cat Phobia

In my senior year of high school my dad was killed in an auto accident. That was in October. In January, I was a passenger in a car driven by my boyfriends mother that broadsided a car that turned in front of us. No fatalities occurred with this accident but we were all in pretty rough shape for a while. I required surgery on my knee to repair the damage.

After having recovered from the surgery and with fading scars, our cat attacked the same leg!
She was part Siamese and all black. And she could hiss like no cat I ever heard.....hateful, scary hiss! She had babies, 2 adorable kittens. We also had a dog. Medium size...a Springer Spaniel/collie mix. I loved him a great deal. Actually, he was my Dad's dog so after my Dad's death, he sort of became mine.

Anyway, one day the kittens ran across the dog's food dish while he was eating. Now, the dog did love the kittens and had always allowed them to climb all over him and lick him and play with his tail. I don't know if it was instinct or just a little warning, but when the kittens ran across his food, he gave a gentle growl. He didn't make a move for them or anything.....just a gentle growl the same as when he played with them. This brought the mother cat to the kitchen immediately to check on her babies, who by this time had run into the living room to play with something else. The mother seem highly agitated and I thought that if I put the dog outside on his cable run the mother would have a chance to check out her babies and calm down some.

The house we lived in was set up so that you could come in the back door into the kitchen and pass through the kitchen to a vestibule with a large arch into the living room and upon turning right another large archway into the dining room with a swinging door back into the kitchen. After putting the dog outside and returning from the door back into the kitchen, I heard this terrible hissing noise behind me. The next thing I feel is this terrible pain in the back of my right leg. I glance down and discover the mother cat has latched onto my leg wrapping her paws around the front and sinking her teeth into my calf and twisting her head back and forth! Needless to say, I am feeling a lot of pain and was no where near as calm as I appear to be in the telling of this tale. In the meantime, I am running around the above mentioned description of archways and doors in our home and screaming.

Eventually the cat decided to let go; perhaps she came to her senses or decided she didn't like the way I tasted. It didn't matter to me why she let go......as long as she let go.

I immediately ran to the upstairs bathroom and locked myself in. My mother was at work at the time but both my sisters were home (1 younger and 1 older) and the older sister's boyfriend was also there. He finally persuaded me to come out of the bathroom and looked at my leg. Being older, my sister and her boyfriend thought it best to contact our mother at work who instructed them to take me to the ER. So, off we went against my wishes.

After arriving at the ER and being seen initially by the nurse, we were given a small examining room to wait for the Dr. After a short wait, the Dr. came in and looked at my leg. He was fairly young and quite good looking to my 17 year old eyes! He smiled up at me at said "What happened here, honey, did your razor get away from you?" I was so embarrassed and I'm sure I was blushing. Not to bore you with anymore details about the hospital visit, I shall just go on to let you know that all ended well and I was released to go home with antibiotics and instructions of what to watch for.

And that folks, is why I am afraid of cats to this day!

8 comments:

Kitty Cheng said...

Hi Martie...I came to your blog through Bill's blog....will keep reading with interest.

I can imagine how frightening it must have been for you regarding the cat attack!! I am so sorry to hear that :(

Anonymous said...

((((((Martie))))) sorry that you lost your dad so early in life. Oh, I just cringed reading your story. I've not ever been too crazy about cats myself. They tend to be selfish creatures. I've only had one cat in my lifetime that I truly loved. His name was Jazz. He was a gentle cat. He was my pet when I was a teen living with my grandma. I would wait for the bus and Jazz would come out and stand with me. He sometimes would hang on my pant legs. Anyway, I can understand why you would have a fear of cats. I have a fear of Doberman Pinchers. I was attacked by one once. I'll tell that story sometime. Hugs!

Meow (aka Connie) said...

Oh, Martie, what a horrible story. I can understand your fear of cats ... I have a similar one about big dogs. It's a shame really, because the majority of cats (and dogs) are nothing to be scared of. Oh, well, there's not a lot we can do to exorcise our fears. Take care, Meow

Michelle said...

Cats or Mice. Which would you prefer? :)

Martie said...

Well Naive, since I've never been attacked by a mouse and since they are much smaller than I....I chose the mice. (Cept, we haven't seen or heard any more since the two we already caught).

Although, I did like your cat, Curious, quite well! ;)

Martie said...

I'm glad to finally meet another "attackee"....not that I'm glad you were attacked, it's just the first time I ever heard of anyone else being attacked by a cat! And after an experience like we have had those darn felines can sense our feelings about them. They are EVIL!

x said...

what an awful experience!
i've had 3 cats and nothing like that or near it has ever happened to me or to anyone in my family. this must have been an exceptionally mean animal, just like people can be mean. there are some lovely kitties out there, full of love. :)

Lori said...

Gosh, I've been surrounded by cats my whole life and never had anything like this happen. Poor martie! :-(

We have 14 cats out here in the country. But I'm thinking you're not interested in giving any of them a new home?!

Happy Valentine's Day!