I think it’s
safe to say that between the three of us, we have had a lot of experience with Mexican/Central
American healthcare. In the past three years we have darkened the doorsteps of
three orthopedists as well as an internist, cardiologist, radiologist,
dermatologist, ophthalmologist, otolaryngologist, audiologist, and a dentist. We
nearly added a gastroenterologist to the list, but luckily that cleared up on
its own.
With animals
on board, we’ve also been to the vet a time or two (a petologist?) but this
has always been for vaccinations and parasite prevention and never for an
emergency. Cue the music because…dun dun dun…we found ourselves with a pet
emergency of the feline variety. Now here’s the thing about cats—and I read
this on the Internet, so you know it’s true—they will never let on that they’re
not feeling well. It’s a defense mechanism going back to their pre-domestication
days when it wasn’t a good idea to show weakness because that would put you at
the top of the menu. Of course, with Edgrrr, he will also never let on that
he’s well-fed, well-cared for, and reasonably content. His defense mechanism is
that he only cops to two moods: pissed off and not pissed off. The former means
that his food bowl is empty; the latter means that you filled it before he had
to start bitching about it. But for all his primal instincts, even he couldn’t
hide the fact that he was limping and leaving bloody pawprints everywhere. We
don’t know when it happened—or how—but there was no denying that his paw was
severely messed up.
Guess which paw?
It’s times
like this when you can really feel helpless. You can’t just hop in a car
(because you don’t have one) and scurry to the nearest vet (because who knows
where that is) and even if you could, there’s the language barrier (although a
messed-up paw is pretty self-explanatory.) We’d had one experience with a vet a
couple months ago when we rescued a pelican from the water with a severely broken
wing. An expat called in a vet that came out to the dock to examine it and through a bartender/translator advised us that the wing could not
be saved, and as it was now unable to survive in the wild, the humane thing to
do would be to put it down. So the vet took the pelican to a secluded part of
the docks, pulled a vial out of his tackle box, and gave it an injection. He
cradled the bird in a blanket until it drew its last breath, after which we
gave it a burial befitting a mariner. Bummed us out for a week. Unfortunately,
we couldn’t get hold of this vet, but I doubt there was anything in his tackle
box that would have put a paw back together and, even though there was nothing
he could have done, I still harbored a little resentment that he couldn’t save
the bird I’d prematurely named “Lucky”.
So instead I
called Santos who had his son come pick us up while we tried to find a vet
online that wasn’t two hours away in San Salvador, and it was Freddy that
suggested we go to the vet in his hometown of El Rosario that had saved his
dog’s life. Forty minutes later and we’re here…
At least it's well ventilated.
It’s
obviously in the construction stages, but when it’s done this will be the first
animal hospital in the area. But more importantly, this facility (even in its current state) provides the community with affordable pet care. Because
pet ownership in El Salvador is on the rise—for companionship, protection, and
(rurally) varmint control—but “responsible pet ownership” as we know it in the
States is often out of reach for the average family. Because when you’re only bringing
in $600 a month, travelling (most likely by bus) to a vet in San Salvador and
forking over a hundred plus dollars to have your pet neutered is not an option.
Neither is $50 plus for shots and $30 for two months of parasite control meds.
That’s one of the reasons why there are so many unwanted litters and high mortality rates. But
here, you can get your pet fixed for $35, all their yearly shots for $10, and
flea/tick/worm prevention for less than $5. Editor’s
Note: If you find yourself in the area and in need of a vet and can afford it,
please consider paying a little more for their services. All extra money goes
toward the building fund.
But back to
Edgrrr’s paw. Dr. Alberto Vasquez Guardado and his assistant/wife were both
caring, thorough, and genuinely dedicated to their profession (they are building
a hospital after all!) They were also old school, because they had to be. As
you’ve probably guessed from the photo, there’s not a lot of clinic yet. And
what is there is extremely bare-bones, because this is El Salvador and little
things like walls, electricity, plumbing, and anything else that requires a
permit is subject to the whims of whoever is currently in charge at the
planning office that day and what is a valid permit one day may not pass muster
with the guy manning the desk the following day. As a result of the start/stop
construction process, they currently have one room for procedures, labs, and
convalescing patients while everything else (exams, vaccinations, grooming,
etc.) is conducted on tables in a part of the clinic still open to the elements.
There is no power (see aforementioned blurb on “permits”), but syringes, tools,
and surgical items come sealed until use and whereas our vet back in the states
would have probably used some knock-out gas on Edgrrr prior to any procedures,
here in rural El Salvador they have “the bag” which is exactly what it sounds
like. Now at first, I was taken aback—and for a split second thought it was just a
weird attempt at vet humor (like “ha ha…but seriously, here’s the knock-out
juice.)—but after seeing it in action, I realized it’s actually low-tech
genius. Because Edgrrr is not the most cordial of cats; he has a nasty swipe
and a sharp bite to go along with that “charming” personality of his. It would normally take two people to hold him
down so that the vet could do their thing, but the bag eliminated this need. It
acted like a firm hug around his entire body, holding him still yet allowing
him to breath comfortably. Once he was situated, the vet cut an opening and
pulled his bad paw out for further examination. There was growling, but there
was no carnage.
Pictured: Cat in the bag. Wonder if it comes in blue to match the boat?
Like I said
before, we have no clue how he did it or what he got in to, but it took over
twenty stiches to put his paw pad back together—in fact, the doctor pretty much
had to remove the pad, clean out the wound, stitch the pad back together, and
sew it back on. The procedure took about thirty minutes (with only the bag for
containment and a local anesthesia for the pain) and then Edgrrr was returned
to us with a small baggie of antibiotics and some topical cream. The vet also
showed us a phone video of the procedure which was as gruesome as you can
imagine, and when he asked if we wanted a copy my immediate response was, “No, gracias.
I think that’ll be fueling my nightmares long enough.”
Ten days
later we returned for a follow up. Edgrrr went back into the bag and Dr Vasquez
took him into the back room. About five minutes later, he returned and, without
saying a word, put a tiny black furball into my hand and disappeared again into
the back room. As I’m standing there completely stunned, my first thought is,
“Holy shit. Did Edgrrr die? Is this to lessen the blow? Is this my
condolence/replacement cat?” but then my next thought was, “Oh my God! This is
the cutest thing I have ever seen in my life!”
Prepare to
say, “Awwwww!!!” in three, two, one…
This
incredible bit of adorable was found wandering—malnourished and anemic—in the
field beside the clinic. Its mother was nowhere to be found. The vet took him
in and nursed him back to health, and if the kitten was once lucky to have been
abandoned right next to a vet then it was twice lucky that a gringa that’s gaga
for gatos should happen into the clinic right as he was ready for adoption. Not
that we rushed into the decision. We do live on a boat and we are travelling
(albeit at a very, very slow rate), but when you’re in our situation and you
already have animals, one more (small one) really doesn’t affect your
lifestyle, just so long as it doesn’t become a habit. So we talked about it,
slept on it, and the next morning returned to the clinic and adopted our newest
member of the crew. And we named him Cadejo.
Now at this
point you’re probably wondering what the heck is a Cadejo? Well, in Central
American folklore, a cadejo is a supernatural creature with glowing red eyes
that looks like a dog with a little deer thrown in and comes in two colors. The
white cadejo is a benevolent protector (one who, according to legend, will
ensure that drunk folks get home safely), while the black one is malevolent and
likes to lure people into questionable situations (like an open bar serving
nothing but tequila.) The good and the evil; the dark and the light; one
pushing, the other pulling. They say that the two cadejos represent the duality
in us all. Pretty heady stuff, huh? Very yin/yang. But before you go thinking
we got all mystical on you, the fact of the matter is that our Cadejo was named
after this place…
Less yin. More yeast.
This is Cadejo
Brewing Company, our go-to place in San Salvador for really good beer, excellent
food, and the best wings outside of the States. We come here a lot. How often?
Let’s just say that the servers start pouring the preferred brews as soon as we
arrive in the parking lot: El Suegra for
the Captain, Belga for the Deck Boss, and Hija de Pooh for me. We have other
places we like to eat in San Salvador, but it’s just so nice to go to a place
where “todo el mundo sabe tu nombre.” We’ve had a lot of good times here and that
coupled with some pretty cool folklore, made it seem very fitting to name our
newest family member after a brewery. That and they have the world’s most kick-ass
growler…
Of
course, one of their slogans translates as “Not suitable for cats” but
we’ll just ignore that for now.
So obviously
we are head over heals for our nuevo gato and it’s all we can do to not spend
every waking moment watching him bumble around in exploration, play like it’s
his job, devour his food like he’s in a pie-eating contest, and sleep like it’s
his other job. We’re curious to see how big he’ll be. The vet said he was
two-months old, but he was still so tiny that he fit in the palm of my hand.
Over the next three weeks he grew six inches from tip of the nose to tip of the
tail but seems to have stalled out since then although he has gotten slightly
taller. He still doesn’t register anything on the scale. So you can imagine the
spectacle of Cadejo next to Otter who easily clocks in at 85 pounds. I’d post a
picture but it’s black on black in bad lighting.
On second thought....
Awwwww!!!
In case
you’re wondering, Cadejo and Otter get along just fine. Otter is curious, but he
forgets how big he is and one sniff of the nose sends the little guy tumbling,
but overall he’s very gentle and tolerant. Of course, Otter is the farthest
from alpha as a dog can get. Edgrrr bullies him constantly—swatting when he
passes by, hissing when he steps too close. When I’m feeding Otter, Edgrrr will
run underneath him and between his legs to get to the bowl first leaving Otter
to stand there with a hangdog look on his face. When Otter and I return from a
long walk, Edgrrr immediately gets in front of him at the water bowl just to be
a jerk. He sleeps in Otter’s bed, muscles in on his treats, and sticks his butt
in his face (and not in a polite way.) If Otter had lunch money, Edgrrr would be
waiting by the swing sets each day to take it from him. In fact, I’m pretty
sure Edgrrr think’s Otter’s name is actually “Uncle.” Editor’s Note: As I’m writing this, I’m realizing that Edgrrr pretty
much treats us all this way. So I guess that makes me “Patsy”.
And speaking
about Edgrrr. He responded favorably to
the treatment and made a full recovery. And how does he feel about the new
addition? Well, there hasn’t been too much drama. Edgrrr was still in recovery
mode when we brought Cadejo home so it was a couple of days before he even
realized he was there. Then one night he jumped up on the bed, saw the kitten, widened his eyes, and gave us a look that said, “WTF, dudes?! What,
did you think I died? What’s with the condolence/replacement cat already?” And
since then there has been some posturing, some displays of dominance and what
have you on Edgrrr’s part but now that he’s established the pecking order, we have
actually caught him playing (?!) with the little fuzzball. But what Edgrrr
really likes about Cadejo is that he’s on a soft food diet. Edgrrr has always
been a kibble cat by choice. He was never into canned food and whereas he liked
the idea of treats, he would usually just lick it a couple times and call that
good. But sometime during our stay in Mexico, he got a taste for pollo asada
(grilled chicken) and his culinary tastes began to expand. And now, at 14 years
of age, he’s decided that canned cat food is far superior to anything he's eating and insists on having some with every meal and if he doesn’t get it, he muscles
Cadejo out of his. So I guess what I’m saying is, that diet he’s been on for
the past year? It's pretty much gone by the wayside.
Not that it seemed to do much good. From the time the vet in Barra looked at
him and said, “Muy gordo!” to Dr Vasquez lifting him up a year later (and five
pounds lighter) and saying, “Muy gordo!” it’s kind of become apparent that
gordo is as gordo does and if you’re going to be fat, you may as well be happy
or at least, in Edgrrr’s case, not pissed off.
