The car came around the corner like a flash, unmindful of the wayward Persian cat that had begun to cross the road. In a mind numbing moment as metal hit flesh, he was flung to the side of the road. The driver may have glanced back, but most likely, merely drove on, late for an appointment.
The little black cat lay in the ditch, broken and bleeding. Who knows how many hours or days passed before he dragged himself to the shade of a nearby tree or how many more before he managed to find a few remaining drops of water?
Perhaps the second or third day he managed to stand up and assess his situation. His mouth burned from thirst. It didn’t look good. His jaw was broken and it hurt so bad! His teeth were embedded into the roof of his mouth, leaving only a few intact. His left eye hung in its orb and he looked quite fearful he thought.
On wobbly legs he advanced to a public building, walking slowly along its perimeter. People stopped and gawked but no one intervened. A passerby threw him a piece of chicken from his lunch. He sniffed at it and wanted to eat it so badly but his jaw would not work and he could not, despite his best efforts, get the food in his mouth.
This probably went on for a while. No one knows how long. Would the infections from his eye and jaw kill him or would he die an even slower death from starvation?
Finally, after an unknown amount of time with very little water and no food, Round Rock Animal Control was called. Mercifully, he was picked up by their officers and given immediate medical attention. This little cat’s luck continued. He was then brought to Shadow Cats Rescue in Round Rock where he was hospitalized at Central Texas Cat Hospital. The doctors there labored over him for hours working to reconstruct his face and make some sense out of his altered anatomy. His eye was removed. Packing gauze filled the empty orb. A feeding tube was inserted into the esophagus. His tongue protruded from his mouth but his newly attached jaw opened and closed more normally. More surgeries would be required at a later time.
He spent the first night in a deep drug induced sleep. The steady rise and fall of his breathing encouraged those watching over him.
The next day, he was groggy and moving about, but more pain medications were given to help him.
On the second morning he slept peacefully, but now we could see him making biscuits in his blanket- even though he appeared to be asleep. By that afternoon, he was walking slowly about the veterinary hospital with his IV pole and staff member in tow. And even though his appearance was still disturbing, this little Miracle Cat was proving he had a strong Spirit and might make it.
Khan continued to improve each day and had several more surgeries at Central Texas Specialty Hospital in Round Rock, Texas and also at Texas A&M University Veterinary Hospital at College Station, Texas. He was adopted by the most wonderful family in College Station, Texas and lived with his new family where he made himself quite at home and was cared for and loved very much.
From Khan’s Adoptive Family:
My name is Cindy, and my family and I were lucky enough to adopt Khan in August 2006. Sheila has asked me to tell our story.
We first heard about him through Craig’s List. We visited the Shadow Cats website to learn more. After reading about his trials, and seeing his picture, we knew immediately that we wanted to go to Round Rock to meet him in person. I first emailed Sheila (I was completely unfamiliar with Shadow Cats, or Sheila and Roy at this point) to ask if Khan was still available. Her response so effusive! She said that, “YES!” he was available and she invited us there to meet him. She added, excitedly, that she would tell Khan someone had asked about him, and that he would be “so excited!”
The reason for Sheila’s enthusiasm was that while many people had been touched by Khan’s story, and had been generous with donations for him, no one had expressed interest in adopting him permanently. Fortunately he was with a good foster family, but he needed a forever home.
We drove up the following Saturday and spent about two hours at Shadow Cats, where we met Khan, Sheila and Khan’s foster mom for the first time. Khan was a little shy, but still very handsome even though he was missing one eye. My daughter—who was 9 years old at the time–bonded with him (and with Sheila) right away. We filled out the adoption paperwork, listing our references and saying what other pets we had. Sheila also asked me a lot of questions about our history of pet ownership. She was concerned that we had a dog, because Khan wouldn’t have the strength to fight off even a well-meaning dog, and ours is very energetic. But we assured her that we had other cats who were not so fond of dogs, and our house was designed in such a way that we were able to separate them and allow them plenty of personal space. We were impressed with the intensiveness of the approval process; we knew that this was a place that was careful about adopting out their cats.
After we were approved, Sheila contacted us to let us know that Khan would soon be arriving at our door! One of their wonderful volunteers was going to be driving our way, and would deliver Khan to us. We were so excited, especially our daughter, who couldn’t wait to have him with us. When Khan and the volunteer arrived, we showed them both around and put Khan into the master bathroom with a fresh litter box, food and water, so that he’d have a private area in which to get acclimated before he met our other animal companions. But I did not want him to have to be by himself in the bathroom all night, so I shut the other cats out of the bedroom and gave him the freedom of the room until the next morning. It was only a couple of days before he became integrated into the family, and while none of the cats had a problem getting along with him, our cat Clementine seemed to take to him the best. She began sleeping near him on a regular basis.
We saw that Khan was not able to jump up onto most of the furniture, especially our tall bed; so my clever husband built a step stool for him that allowed him climb up easily. For most of his time with us, Khan’s favorite place was on that bed.
We began taking him to the Texas A&M University Small Animal Clinic, to Dr. John August, who is a feline specialist. We made sure that he had Khan’s medical history, because we knew Khan would probably need additional specialized care. Dr. August started him on injections of Adequan every 5 weeks for joint pain. He also discovered that Khan had very bad infections in both ears, and concluded that they had been long-standing (probably since before his accident). He also had polyps growing in both ears and on his ear flaps. Dr. August had his colleagues check Khan out, and that also brought to light that Khan needed oral surgery to remove some damaged teeth and roots, which was scheduled not long after.
In addition to removing the bad teeth, the doctors recommended surgery on his ear canals. We had to decide between having them remove the polyps and “resection” the ear canals to allow better drainage, or to do total ear canal ablations (remove the ear canals). The second option would result in complete hearing loss, but the doctors said his hearing was already 80% compromised by the infections. After consulting with Sheila and Roy about it, we opted for the ear canal resectioning on both ears. The surgery was done in 
September of 2006, and he came through it with flying colors. However, while the right ear showed much improvement after surgery, the left ear still needed daily cleaning, ear drops, and oral antibiotics to stave off infection. We tried for nearly a year to maintain it, but by that time the left ear was starting to show signs of new infections as well. In Dec 2007, we had the ablation surgery done on his left ear. This led to another blow; when the tested the removed ear canal they found cancerous cells, and told me that there was a 95% chance that the cancer had already spread. An xray showed an odd spot in his lungs, but they couldn’t be sure if it was cancer. He didn’t show any other signs, but we remained watchful.
In late 2008, despite our efforts to try to save it, Khan had to have the ear canal on the right side removed as well. I dreaded the loss of his remaining hearing, but in truth, after the surgery he seemed so much more comfortable that in retrospect I wished we had done it sooner. In fact, the hearing loss was a non-issue for Khan; the problem was me! I would continue to call his name when I wanted him, forgetting that he couldn’t hear me. I also had to learn to approach him from the side on which he had vision, and not to accidentally come up from behind him or on his blind side, because with limited sight and no hearing, he startled easily. But he soon began to read our hand signals, and would come to us when we signaled to him. Overall, he seemed happy.
Then, tragically, things took a sudden turn for the worse. For reasons we don’t understand, 3 months after the second surgery, Khan stopped eating. It’s one of those things that, with other cats in the house and a habit of free feeding, we didn’t notice right away. But we did notice when he began to withdraw from the family and hide under furniture. We knew something was wrong.
We took him into the clinic immediately, on December 2, 2008. Blood work and an ultrasound led to a diagnosis of pancreatitis and cholangiohepatitis (liver diseases). They couldn’t tell me why those conditions had developed, and it seemed not to have anything to do with cancer. But after everything else he had been through, it just seemed unfair. We wanted to at least give him a fighting chance at life.
We had to have a feeding tube surgically inserted into his stomach, and we began feeding him small meals 5 or 6 times per day. We used a large syringe to push food through the tube after the food had been mixed with water in the blender to make it thinner. We were also grinding up his medications and adding them to the food, or injecting them into the tube (mixed with water) using a small syringe. Some of his pills were due in the morning, some at night, some 3 or 4 times per day. Each feeding took about 45 minutes, because pushing the food in too fast would cause him to vomit. The schedule became so complicated that I decided to type out a chart and hang it on the wall, so that we would know when to add/mix specific medications. I had recently been forced to resign from my full time job, so I happened to be home all day at that time, which allowed me to do most of the daytime feedings. My husband would often do one when he came home for lunch, and the evening meals, to give me a break. We kept trying to tempt him to take in some food orally, but he no interest.
We kept up the feeding/medication for a month, and we kept hoping that tests would show that he was getting better, and I kept thinking that I saw signs of improvement. But the tests didn’t agree. Finally, his veterinarian suggested that maybe it was time to let him go. We held on for a few more days, so that we could come to terms with it as a family, and spend a little more time with him. On January 2, we brought him in for the last time, and said goodbye. My husband and I were there with him, petting him, when he passed. The sweet little guy did not stop purring until he took his last breath.
We’re so glad that we had the time that we did with Khan. Those 2 years and 5 months passed very quickly. We also made lifelong friends at Shadow Cats.
I hope that Khan felt cared for and loved while he was with us.
Khan and other cats who had passed during the last year were remembered in a beautiful ceremony a few months later at Sheila and Roy’s home. It was well attended, and each person was given the opportunity to read aloud a list of names (of the cats being remembered). David Murphy played lovely songs on Native American flutes, and there was a display with photos of the cats (and other animal companions) being honored. We brought with us some us Khan’s ashes to spread in the memorial garden so that part of his spirit would always remain there.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Cindy, thank you and your family for opening your hearts and home to Khan. There is no doubt in our minds that he indeed “felt cared for and loved” while he was with you.