Gypsy has, for an unknown reason, become a different cat. Well, not so much a different cat as the cat she was before being traumatised. The first sign was the fur that she had 'plucked' for so many years grew back, then her personality began to change - she started standing up for herself instead of running away at the first sign of trouble. There's even been one incident when Gypsy has scared off an aggressive tomcat that no one else would confront. She still doesn't talk to the other cats much, but that's just her way - she is a very much happier girl though! :)
Gypsy came to me at the end of May ‘94, she was six weeks old. She is one of the lucky ones who has never experienced neglect or mistreatment, though she has had her fair share of problems.
For the first six months of her life, Gypsy was a normal, healthy kitten. She enjoyed cuddles, ate well, played with the other cats and slept on the bed. Gypsy was spayed the day she was six months old, she’s never been the same since. After the surgery she became withdrawn and depressed. At the time I put it down to post-operative depression and assumed she would recover in time, but when I took her to have the stitches removed I started to suspect that something more serious was wrong. It wasn’t anything the vet did or said that made me suspicious, in truth I didn’t even see the vet.
When we arrived for the appointment (which had been booked ten days previously) there was no vet to see us. The only person in the whole building was the practice receptionist, who was only qualified to answer the phone and not to do anything medical. When I said that we had an appointment for stitch removal she got slightly flustered, before telling me to take Gypsy through to the consultation room. The receptionist followed us through and started bumbling around trying to remove the stitches. She was having no success with what is a very simple procedure, and it wasn’t at all surprising considering that every single instrument she tried was blunt! Surgical instruments are meant to be used once, then thrown away. This is to ensure that they are always sterile and sharp enough to work properly. I dread to think how many times those instruments had been used to be as blunt as they were. In the end I just picked up Gypsy and walked out. I removed the stitches myself.
After I had calmed down I decided to register an official complaint against the vet who operated on Gypsy. I not only mentioned the blunt instruments and lack of vet, but also the major change in Gypsy’s personality since the surgery. Letters flew back and forth between myself and the RCVS (Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons) for months, but none of their letters contained anything helpful. Eventually they told me that the vet in question was extremely ill and would not be returning to practice, so I agreed to drop my complaint against him. I did keep talking to people about him though, and found out some interesting things. Apparently, until sometime in the 1980’s he used to be a very good vet, but then his son was killed in a car accident and the vet became an alcoholic. He couldn’t perform surgery properly because his hands shook, and his memory deteriorated badly. Because of this he lost most of his clients, which lead to financial problems. This explains everything, but it doesn’t help Gypsy.
When Gypsy was eleven months old she was re-traumatised by witnessing her kittenhood friend, Ginnie, being killed by a car. Ginnie was the only cat that Gypsy actually liked, since his death she has never formed a friendship with any other cat. She eats and sleeps separately from the other cats, a lot of the time when another cat approaches her she hisses and runs away. She loves attention though, almost as much as she loves food, and she spends hours at a time sunbathing in the garden. She is in her own little world, but she is happy there.