{"id":2011,"date":"2011-04-03T22:39:45","date_gmt":"2011-04-04T05:39:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thriveinlife.ca\/?p=2011"},"modified":"2012-09-19T13:59:51","modified_gmt":"2012-09-19T20:59:51","slug":"st-francis-feline-a-miraculous-healing-for-felix-the-cat-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thriveinlife.ca\/index.php\/st-francis-feline-a-miraculous-healing-for-felix-the-cat-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Francis\u2019 Feline: A Miraculous Healing For Felix The Cat – Part Two"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\"\"<\/a>My Felix the Cat wears a Virgin Mary blue collar with a St. Francis medal. She is a Franciscan kitty, though I am not a Franciscan myself. Felix and St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals, have a special relationship.<\/p>\n

In 2007, Felix lived in a small St. Louis apartment while I worked as a hospital chaplain. Used to being an indoor\/outdoor kitty on the grounds of Mum and Dad\u2019s small town Kansas Victorian house, Felix had trouble adjusting to her new home and lifestyle.<\/p>\n

Felix wasn\u2019t happy, and I wasn\u2019t happy. Together, we journeyed through one of those chapters in life full of stormy uncertainty and misery, waiting for the sun. \u00a0I came home most nights with visions of patients\u2019 pain and suffering blazed into my mind. When I was on-call, I left at any hour of the day or night to comfort the dying, fearful, and in pain. Felix used to sit on the slick black beepers that called me away, as though she had the power to resurrect the dead and heal the broken-hearted. If only she had!<\/p>\n

Food was Felix\u2019s great comfort. She cleaned the scent of her salmon-flavored soft chunks from her white whiskers with her white paws for at least twenty minutes after meals. When Felix stopped licking her whiskers and then started leaving most of her food, I grew concerned. When Felix\u2019s fur started sticking to her back in unsightly chunks and her water remained untouched, I took her to the vet. The nightmare began.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour cat has end-stage kidney failure. She will die immediately without treatment. With treatment, she has six months to two years,\u201d came the vet\u2019s diagnosis. The vet\u2019s office kept Felix for saline treatments, and I returned home alone with pamphlets about feline kidney disease and pet burial options for cold comfort.<\/p>\n

A friend at work asked if I knew about the pet food recall. Cats and dogs all over the U.S. were experiencing kidney failure after eating food from an established pet food manufacturer contaminated in China. My body went cold. Felix ate that food.<\/p>\n

I went home, checked Felix\u2019s food pouches, and my heart sank. The plant number matched the plants for the pet food recalls. Empowered, I phoned the company and started filing a complaint. All I needed was the vet\u2019s confirmation of Felix\u2019s condition, and we would have justice.<\/p>\n

To my disgust, my vet wouldn\u2019t validate Felix\u2019s condition. \u201cShe\u2019s over ten. There\u2019s no way to determine whether this wasn\u2019t a pre-existing condition. I can\u2019t confirm the pet food caused this.\u201d Deflated, I dropped my claim.<\/p>\n

Now I wish I\u2019d tried another vet and another and another until I found one who would fight, but at the time I was so exhausted and scared about the mounting bills that I felt trapped. Indeed, it would take me three years to get Felix\u2019s vet pills off of my credit card. Inpatient saline treatment for a day extended into a week. A battery of tests followed, my cat had better medical care than I did. Felix\u2019s new protein-free food cost five times her old food, and when the vet tried to tell me Felix needed some teeth pulled I had had enough. Wasn\u2019t she going through enough without a sore mouth, too?<\/p>\n

Then the vet had even worse news. One of her techs noticed that Felix didn\u2019t respond to movement on her left side. The vet speculated a stroke, or a more serious condition. She referred me to a feline ophthalmologist, one of a handful of feline eye doctors in the nation. Terrified, I booked an appointment.<\/p>\n

On one of the worst days of my life, I navigated rush hour traffic with a yowling Felix loose in the car, desperately seeking the right strip mall in Manchester, Missouri. I tried to get her in her carrier, but she howled and twisted her body, claws extended like a Chinese dragon. I lived alone, and I had no one to help.\u00a0Felix climbed up the dash and made a lunge for my shoulders. We’d had enough. And if I didn\u2019t stop, rush hour traffic might kill us both. Quickly, I slid\u00a0between two SUV\u2019s into the left lane, and then\u00a0into a near-by strip mall.\u00a0Lo and behold – we had found the right strip mall for the doctor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

Felix had the luxury of visiting the doctor who tended the lions, tigers, and cats at the St. Louis zoo.\u00a0 After a five minute exam, the doctor declared Felix had benign growths and no more chance of a stroke than any other cat over ten. Relieved, Felix and I fought the tail end of traffic home. We spent two and a half hours getting to the feline eye doctors for ten minutes with the expert.<\/p>\n

By now, everyone at work had heard about Felix\u2019s illness and my battle with her care. Sr. Sophia, a Franciscan sister, knew how much comfort I found from the saints. Indeed, I had written my undergraduate history thesis on St. Francis\u2019s stigmata and the meaning of suffering in Christianity. Sr.\u00a0Sophia asked me if Felix would like a blessing, a special prayer for God\u2019s protection and healing. I gratefully said yes.<\/p>\n

Sr.\u00a0Sophia came by the next day, all but her glasses, face, and sneakers obscured by black habit and veil.\u00a0Concern and calculated watchfulness shone through her hazel eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have brought Felix a St. Francis medal,\u201d said Sophia. \u201cSt. Francis loves all the animals, and St. Francis is suffering with Felix and all animals who suffer.\u201d<\/p>\n

My friend presented me with the small silver medal, an image of St. Francis surrounded by flora and fauna on one side, and the imperative \u201cpray for us\u201d on the reverse.\u00a0 Felix stared across the room at us, unblinking.\u00a0Sophia stared back with a dog person\u2019s confusion and hesitation. To break the ice, I approached Felix and bent down to coax her head. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you so much,\u201d I replied with tears in my eyes. \u201cWould you offer Felix a blessing?\u201d<\/p>\n

Sr.\u00a0Sophia smiled nervously and reached down her thin, knobbed first and second fingers to touch Felix on the forehead, exactly where a priest would touch a person he or she is blessing. Felix didn\u2019t move.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t remember Sophia\u2019s exact words, as I had my eyes closed focusing all my love and hope into my friend\u2019s prayer for my cat\u2019s life. When I opened my eyes,\u00a0Sophia was petting Felix on the head, and Felix was squirming to escape.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, your cat\u2019s Franciscan now,\u201d teased\u00a0Sophia with her crooked grin.<\/p>\n

Slowly, Felix began to recover from her bout with death. I placed the St. Francis medal on the wall above her food and water bowl, but she kept rubbing against it and knocking it off the wall.<\/p>\n

I then put the medal on her collar, just like a person would wear a cross or other symbol of devotion. Months later, when I tried to change her collar, Felix thrashed like a fish on a line and ran away. I took that as a sign that Felix found healing in St. Francis and the love the medal represented.<\/p>\n

After her maior battle with kidney disease, Felix knew better than I the suffering of St. Francis. Felix nearly died from dehydration. She was hooked up to an IV for a week. She ate dry protein-free food,\u00a0her body refusing to work properly.<\/p>\n

Felix is alive today, nearly four years after her diagnosis and two years longer than the vet projected. I rejoice in Felix\u2019s recovery and in the power of love, concentrated in Felix\u2019s St. Francis medal that has healed me and my cat.<\/p>\n

Melissa Roberts Bio:<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Melissa Roberts is a freelance writer who lives in Parsons, KS. She enjoys sharing stories, cooking, meditating, the beauty in life and people,\u00a0time with boyfriend Mark and, of course, the presence of the\u00a0elderly feline Felix. Melissa is a Feature Writer for Suite101.com, an online magazine, and enjoys sharing articles on religion, history, cooking, travel, and spiritual growth there.\u00a0 Here is a\u00a0 link to her website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Back to <\/strong>Stories<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My Felix the Cat wears a Virgin Mary blue collar with a St. Francis medal. She is a Franciscan kitty, though I am not a Franciscan myself. Felix and St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals, have a special relationship. In 2007, Felix lived in a small St. Louis apartment while I worked as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,51,16],"tags":[13,150,14,17],"class_list":["post-2011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animal-companion","category-healing","category-spiritual","tag-animal","tag-healing","tag-pets","tag-spiritual-2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"views":30851,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thriveinlife.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thriveinlife.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thriveinlife.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thriveinlife.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thriveinlife.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thriveinlife.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thriveinlife.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thriveinlife.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thriveinlife.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}