Alma: The Cat Everyone Saw and No One Helped

Alma was living on the streets with an open wound in her abdomen.

Not a fresh injury. Not something that happened yesterday. The veterinarians who examined her believe she most likely became trapped in wire or fencing at some point, and that the wound had been there for a long time.

Which means Alma had been surviving out there, day after day, carrying a deep, open injury and pain that is hard to imagine.

Here is the part that is hardest to write. People knew about her. She had been seen. It was known that she was hurt. And still, nobody stepped in.

Not out of malice, most likely. It is easier than we like to admit to see a suffering animal and assume someone else will deal with it, or that a stray’s pain is simply the way of things. But while everyone waited for someone else to help her, Alma’s wound stayed open, and Alma kept hurting. Until one of our volunteers found her.

She was taken straight for X-rays, and there was one piece of good news in all of this: no internal injuries. Her body had held out.

But the wound itself needed serious attention. It was too deep and too long-neglected to heal on its own, and Alma underwent surgery to clean and close it properly.

Since then it has been careful, patient work. Wound management, monitoring, medication and time. Alma’s recovery was never going to be quick, and it is not finished yet.

She is receiving the care she needs. She is warm, she is safe, and for the first time in a very long while, she is not in pain alone.

The road ahead is still long. But she is on it now, and she is not walking it by herself.

Alma’s story is a reminder that the difference between an animal who suffers and an animal who heals is often just one person deciding not to look away. Thank you for being the reason our volunteers can be that person, and for making sure that when they find the next Alma, help is already waiting.