What an amazing story, Knut! I'm so glad Sylvester is home at last. I
agree that, after surviving for so long under those conditions, he
deserves a chance.

--
Joy

"Knut Moe" wrote in message
...
Sylvester disappeared Tuesday July 1st in the afternoon. Of course,
being
the head of our family, we feared something might have happened to
him - as
he had never stayed away from the house for more than a few hours at a
time.
Neighbors were alerted (thanks Ulf and Anna, Berit, Kjetil, and all
the kids
around here for being on the look-out!), posters were distributed,
animalshelters were notified. All to no avail; seemingly Sylvester had
been
swallowed up by the ground.
For the next weeks we searched quite a lot in the greater Furuset
area, and
also nearby our house. Our guess was that Sylvester had been annoyed
by the
fact that we just got our new dog (Alfa), and decided to protest this
by
taking a prolonged leave of absence. We couldn't have been more wrong.

While we were looking for Sylvester, we came across a few other stray
cats,
one especially, who was looking sort of scruffy and in dire need of a
longer
bath. We checked him out, found a eartag and checked out the
missing-list at
www.nettkatten.no. Success! His owners had handed him over to a family
catsitter at Grefsen in Oslo, and he had escaped from there. In
february,
2003!!!! From Grefsen to Furuset the distance is about 10 km, crossing
about
2-3 freeways in the process of getting here. The owners aborted their
holidays, and got here in record time. Needless to say they were quite
surprised to see him again, and their gratitude was overwhelming. We
were,
of course, very happy for them - but missed Sylvester more than ever -
although the fact that there seem to be more than a few long-time
reunions
between cats and owners (or "staff" as we like to call us) gave us a
little
hope.

Apart from this, our summervacation passed, and hopes of finding
Sylvester,
let alone find out what happened to him, faded. We received about 15
calls
and requests to check a straycat out, but they were all somebody elses
cats.
People do really want to help, though.

The real breakthrough came Tuesday August 12th 2003. I had just
finished a
businessmeeting at Kolbotn, and my cellphone rang. An agitated voice
told me
she had found my cat, strangely enough I instinctively believed her.
"It had
to be him - I just dropped him off at the vet, and saw your poster on
the
way back. Give them a call!" I didn't get her name or anything, just
hurled
myself into the car, and drove to the clinic - picking up Siren and
Sebastian on my way there. (Thank God there weren't any police
controlposts
on my way).

The woman who found Sylvester gave me some disturbing information
about a
schoolcontainer, and I was thinking in the direction of trash-dumpster
or
something similiar - giving me some hope that Sylvester something to
eat
whilst being trapped. Again I was to be negatively surprised.

When we got to the vet, my poor cat was a pitiful sight. Weighing in
at 2.3
kg, he had lost around 5 kg. All skin and bones, completely dehydrated
(even
the eyes looked strange). He could not stand, eat or take care of
himself.
For the next 4 days, he was treated at the clinic - after the initial
bloodwork turned out - "Miracolously", according to the senior
veterinarian - very good. Sylvester was given fluids intranvenously,
and
started to improve immediately - much to the staff's surprise.
Although
dehydrated cats are not uncommon, they had not seen a condition like
this
turn out well - they had not seen a condition like this at all. We
visited
Sylvester daily, and called there even more often. From each visit we
saw
improvement; gaining stability, increasing fluidlevels, starting to
eat by
himself, starting to drink by himself - even the bowelmovement was
great
news, of course. We were also quite happy to see him start to clean
himself
up, he was quite smelly at the time.

While Sylvester was recuperating at the clinic, we got to the bottom
of what
had happened at the school. The staff had carried alot of furniture
out, and
into a shippingcontainer (the ones you see on boats and big trucks).
The
container was to be used as a storagearea due to interiorwork in the
school
over the summer. After it was filled up with tables, chairs, shelves,
some
toilets and so on - it was locked up and left for the summer - all the
staff
getting on with their holidays. Just before they locked, Sylvester
must have
snuck in, and found himself a nice spot to relax. 6 weeks later- that
is 42
days and nights - the now skinny cat came tumbling out when they
opened the
container to carry all the furniture inside. The rest is, as they say,
history.

Sylvester came home from the clinic Friday, and has been with us for
24
hours as I'm writing this. He is eating, drinking and being very -
VERY -
sociable. He has even been horsing a little around with Alfa and
Sebastian,
but mostly he's resting in our bed (there are no taboos after being
subjected to a trauma like that). The bed is, tragically, located less
than
50 meters from where the container was situated.

People at the clinic and elsewhere asked us if we had thought about
euthenasia, but I think that would be terribly wrong. Having lived
through
an ordeal like that, we will give him plenty of time to get well -
even if
he does not recover fully, we will keep him as long as God's willing -
we
just have to provide some extra care.

We have no idea is this story is one of a kind, or if there are others
stories alike. If there are, please send us an email - we would like
to get
in touch with other catstaff who know of any long-term effects and
share
experiences. I guess we all know that cats are extremely durable,
right now
I'm just curious as to what extent.