In December 2019, I received an appeal from a local volunteer looking for a foster for a paralysed cat that had been picked up by a local animal charity. No-one in the charity was equipped to take such a cat and they needed a stable, secure place for the cat to stay while her physical condition was assessed and she could be evaluated for adoption.

At the time, I still had three bottle baby kittens and I was returning to the U.K. for Christmas, but I agreed to take the cat upon my return to Italy if they could find someone to keep her until then. Before coming to me, the cat had x-rays at the vet used by the charity, and, since she had to be sedated anyway, she was sterilised at the same time. I also took her to have a specialist visit at my personal vet in December where she was assessed by an orthopedic surgeon and given the name “Boscaiola”. We found out that she had a fractured vertebrae and her kneecaps had been knocked out of place. Heartbreakingly, the vets also deemed that her injuries were not recent, she’d been that way for a while, despite being only about 6 months old. Thankfully, her bladder was not, and is not, neurological. She is completely able to do her business all by herself.

Boscaiola arrived at my house on New Year’s Day 2020, along with a bag full of medications – meds for the nerve damage, the muscle spasms in her legs, the contracture of the muscles in her legs and lower spine due to a lack of use, several pain meds, 2 different meds to make sure her bladder emptied completely. The list went on, she had to take so many different meds. Some were to be taken before food, with food, or between meals. Some were liquid, some were tablets. It was quite the battle.

A couple of days later, we had a meeting with a physiotherapist and we came up with a plan. Boscaiola was to have 2 hours of physiotherapy, and other treatments such as laser therapy, every day, at least in the beginning, and we’d wait to see how much progress she made before adjusting the plan later on.

After a month, Boscaiola had made good progress, but it was obvious that she would never walk normally again. Her knees would remain blocked in place, so her back legs would never bend. She could, however, “walk” around on one of her back legs, moving more like a bunny than a cat. We reduced the physiotherapy sessions to 3 times a week with discussion of reducing them to once a week in the future.

Then the pandemic struck and almost everything stopped. We continued with very limited physiotherapy sessions depending on how busy the clinic was and needing to respect the social distancing rules at the time. Eventually, after 3 months, it was decided that Boscaiola was going to make precious little improvement from where she had managed to get to and the physiotherapy was stopped.

Since then, Boscaiola has adapted amazingly well to her situation. She can climb on the sofa, the bed and even the second “floor” of the cat trees by herself. She “runs” around playing with the others and is a surprisingly active cat, who seems to love the life she has. She has even learnt to poop standing up so she doesn’t get any mess on her legs! She is so impressive and resilient, and she has taught me a lot about standing tall and facing problems head on.