By the title you might think that we bought some kind of a rare expensive breed with a long ancestry dating back to English royal pets. But no, I mean that in a different way, and here's how.
Me and my girlfriend live in Moscow in a district where there are a lot of stray cats. And since almost everyone in the neighborhood feeds them, we picked the habit to occasionally feed the strays too, so we carry around a packet or two of cat food. One evening, it was in August, 2023, we saw a cat sitting on the porch of an infrastructure building. We approached it, and unlike other cats, it was neither skittish or friendly. It was just sitting there. We gave it some food, and it stood up and wobbled its way to eat. It was very skinny, dirty and its eyes were almost shut because of all the junk there. We even thought that it might be blind. It was moving very wobbly, barely holding itself on feet. By that time we had to go, so when we came back a few hours later, the cat was still there, it was somewhat more active and it greeted us with purring and headbutting. It ate all the food we gave, so we gave it some more and poured some water. It was a very late evening, so there were no open vets around, so we decided to wait untill the dawn. It was very sad to leave it, but we weren't sure about its health, maybe it was just an old cat that purposefully came there to die, like they do, because it was quite a hidden place. And we couldn't take it to our apartment, because we were renting it and we weren't sure if it doesn't have any parasites that can infestate the flat. If the cat were still there by the next day, we'd try to catch it and go to a vet.
And sure enough, the next morning it was still sitting there, waiting. By that time it was decided to at least try to save it. I took some photos of it and while my gf was sitting there with the cat, I was going to some local vets to ask whether it would be okay if we bring a cat in this kind of condition to them. Most of local vets said that the cat is most likely infected, and so it needs to be sent in a proper pet hospital. I found the one close enough and willing to take the cat, and then we carefully put it in the pet cage I bought from one of the vets and drove right there. The cat wasn't resisting at all.
At the pet hospital they quickly examined her, that's when we found out her gender and that she was a relatively young cat, around 3-4 years old. She was very skinny, only about 1.8 kg (4 lbs), while the normal weight for a cat her size is double that. She also had a bunch of viruses, deceases, infections, parasites and stuff, but, luckily, nothing untreatable. But all this in combination was very dangerous, the doctor said that she would have died in a few days if we didn't bring her to them. And even they couldn't guarantee that she would make it out in there. She also had a very low level of blood cells in her blood because of the lice. The doctor said that it was "almost like water" and she needed blood transfusion asap. They called for almost every vet clinic in Moscow in search of the suitable cat blood for her. And luckily, one of the clinics had the blood, a small packet of 40ml, which was just enough for her. So while the cat was at doctor's getting prepared to get the transfusion, we quickly drove to that clinic, bought the blood (had no idea that cat blood is expensive) and drove back to our pet hospital. The doctor said that, even though it happens very rarely, she was legally obligated to tell us that the cat might die during the transfusion because of an anaphylactic shock, and asked if we agree to the procedure. We agreed, and she said we can go home, and they would inform us on how the procedure went, and if everything was okay, the cat would need to stay at the hospital for a week or two for other treatments and recovery. Later that evening we received a message that the transfusion went fine and our cat was alive and resting in her cubicle.
The next week we were receiving daily reports on Nisa's healing. We decided to call her Nisa, this name doesn't mean anything in particular, it just came to my girlfriend's mind, as it rhymes with the word "kisa", which is Russian for "kitty". By the end of that week we were allowed to take her home and treat her ourselves, since she no longer required any injections, only pills, antibiotics and inhalations. And in three months the analyses finally claimed that she was cured of all the deceases that were haunting her! By winter she gained all her lost weight up to normal level, and in January 2024 we sterilized her. All the procedures and medicine cost us a pretty penny (by Russian medical standards, I know American medical bills can be much worse), in total we've spent around $1200 on all treatments.
And since then, Nisa lives with us! She is playful, active, curious and very lovable, as if she was always a domestic cat. In fact, I sometimes even think that she might be a domestic cat, that somehow escaped her home or was thrown out for some reason. She understood the cat toilet on the second day living with us, she is not afraid of any human, she is very social and even sleeps with us, adapting her sleep schedule to ours. But we didn't see anyone searching for her in our neighborhood for all that time we were treating her, no signs, no messages, nothing. And, forgive us, but I think you can understand, that we didn't want to search for a hypothetical owner (that, if existed, probably wasn't searching for her themselves) after all the time and money we've spent on her.
And that's the story of how we got the most beautiful and loyal cat, our lovely Nisa! If toy read till the end, you are a legend and thank you for your attention!
