Pandava the Cat and His Miraculous Recovery

Today is a good day for us to be thankful for. Pandava the cat, one of 20 cats that live around this temple property, had been very sick for five days. Throughout the five days he was constantly dripping and vomiting blood from his mouth, and it couldn’t be stopped. I suspect he had accidentally ingested rat poison. By the third day he could no longer respond, and was listless, just staring ahead.

I had seen the same thing 5 years ago in Chennai when one of the temple cats had eaten a poisoned rat from the street. In that case first she vomited blood, and then later in the day she became listless and unresponsive even though she was awake, eventually leaving her body late in the night.

When I saw the same symptoms in Pandava I became worried and was pretty sure he was about to leave his body. We gave him some ayurvedic medicine to stop the excess bleeding as advised by a vet, and kept him in my room while playing Srila Prabhupada’s Hare Krishna kirtan recording for him.

On the fifth day he was not reacting to us, and I thought the time was nearing, so we put charanamrita water in his mouth and flowers from Lord Jagannath on his body. The bleeding still would not stop, blood would constantly drip from his mouth. We prayed a lot for his well being, hoping he could be cured, but accepted that fate sometimes is not so simple.

I stayed up that night with him thinking it would be his last day, but to my great surprise in the morning he finally opened his eyes and again started walking around. He still could not eat anything, but he started having energy to walk around, and went to the roof to sit in the sun throughout the day. I noticed his tail had again started wagging, and he reacted in small subtle ways as before. The blood flow had also stopped.

After five days of coming very close to death, our prayers were answered and Pandava the cat survived whatever ailment had been afflicting him.