Multiplying hairball

Jasmine is my female Persian cat. She's a cat with a bad attitude at best and is down-right evil at her worst. We brought her home to be a companion for my neutered male Persian, Oscar.

We had had Oscar for about 6 months, when Jasmine came to live with us. Life was good; Oscar had a playmate and Jas had some one besides us to torment. She was Queen and everyone knew it.

Oscar was about 3 years old, neutered and totally de-clawed. He was a huge cat weighing in at about 10 pounds. Jas was dainty; She was just over a year old, with silky hair that she groomed by the hour. If anyone interrupted her grooming, she'd swipe at them with her claws - and she had all four of them. Poor Oscar quickly learned his place. When she wasn't grooming herself, Jas would lay in the window sill, sunning. Ah, life for the Queen Kitty-Cat was purrfect.

All was well, until we moved from our house in the country to a modular home in the city. I never let the cats outside at our house in the country, but it was big enough that both of cats and us had ample space. And sometimes, everyone just needed to avoid Jas.

We were at our new home for about 3 months when Jas started acting funny. She wasn't eating and she was laying around whining a lot. Not only that, but when we tried to pet her, we nearly required stitches. She was a bit...touchy.

Around the first of January, Jas really started looking ill. She had a large round bulge in her stomach and when I touched it, it was hard. Well, I didn't spend much time feeling it, Jas bit me. I did some research on the internet and found that Persians, because of their long hair tend to get accumulate hairballs in their stomachs. It figured, with all that grooming she did. Most of the time, a cat will just hack it up, but sometimes, it actually forms a ball. Upon further research, I found that little could be done except surgery if the hairball was too big. This one appear to be enormous.

I called the vet and explained the situation. It was suggested that before bringing Jas in, that I feed her some castor oil and try to get her to pass it on her own. Well, that seemed simple enough and a lot less expensive, so on my way home from work, I stopped by the store and picked up a bottle.

My husband met me at the door and the look on his face told me, he wasn't happy.

"What is it, what's wrong? It's the cat isn't it?"

"Yeah, it's the cat alright."

"What...was it the hairball?"

"You could say, she passed it."

"Is she..."

"Oh she's fine..." But I could tell that he wasn't. My first husband wasn't a cat lover.

"Then..."

"Go look in the closet."

I raced to the bedroom. I could her Jas meowing softly. Thinking the worst, I flipped on the light and there she was - with not one hairball but 4 and they were...moving!

"KITTENS? How, why..."

Jas had delivered four of the cutest hairballs, on the couch earlier that afternoon. I don't know what happened, but Oscar had a miraculous neuter reversal and was the proud baby daddy. I felt more than a little stupid, after all, I did grow up on a farm and had seen plenty of pregnant cats.

What I didn't realise was that cats can reproduce faster than bunnies, and it didn't take long for Jas to be with hairball again and Oscar to be on his way to the vet.

What can I say, it was a miracle, after all, the woman I bought Oscar from, told me he had been fixed.