dog day afternoon- for the cat.

it's never good to wake up to, "oh my god, you have to see this" as it relates to anything in your life.  but when my husband screamed this at 6:30 this morning to me, in regards to my cat, i kind of freaked.  and then, when i saw what i had to see, well, i very much freaked.  my cat had two (at least two visible) bloody, open sores on his back.  one of which had oozed a neosporin-looking substance (which i am guessing was puss?)  okay, this is gross, i know, but seriously, i FREAKED out!  
after rushing him to the vet immediately at 8:00 a.m., they told me that he had multiple wounds and they'd need to sedate him, shave him, and dress the wounds before i could take him home.  basically, they needed to keep him all day.  the vet was clear- he had been attacked.  
so, what could have attacked my 20+ pound indoor cat?  well, if you remember back to my post What A Day, you may recall that i had twisted my ankle late last Monday night outside on my front steps (while planting a plant for my daughter, ion the pitch black, because i had promised her that it would be there when she woke up, and i had, of course, forgotten until bedtime.)  well, i guess my cat had gotten out without me knowing it, because once i came in from that episode, and wrote my blog, i shut up the house and went to bed.  and never knew, until waking up at 6:00a.m. hearing the cat screaming outside my front door, that he was not inside.  i knew then that he had spent a rough night outside.  he was dirty (he is not a roll-in-the-dirt kind of cat) and he was scared.  i had cleaned up the dirt with baby wipes, but saw nothing visible on his back.  that was 9 days ago.  he has not so much as stepped out onto my patio since then.
the vet believes that he got attacked that night by something, very possibly a bird based on the wounds, and that it just took this long for the infection to set in...  it's the only possibility.  nothing inside could have, or would have, done this to him.
i feel horrible for him.  i feel horrible that i never knew he was outside, and that he had to spend a long night out there, by himself, being attacked by god-knows-what!  i feel horrible that he has spent over a week feeling pain and sickness and that i never knew.  blah.  i hate this feeling.  i am so grateful that he is going to be okay, and that he actually seems fine now that he's home (besides having to be sequestered from the rest of us due to his wound leakage for a few days.)  i spent a lot of time with him in his "room" after the girls went to sleep tonight.  i think he forgives me.  he rubbed and purred and loved me like he used to- before kids.  i let him linger even though my eyes were about to explode for the second time today (my allergies did not handle being locked in the car with him this morning.  i could barely breathe and my eyes almost swelled shut!  good times, indeed!)  i am so glad that he is going to be okay, and that nothing really got him.  as much as i complain about my pets, i love him, and i don't want anything bad to happen to him.  he's my baby-cat, even after 10 years, and especially after his horrible attack.  
i don't like that it took feeling like i may lose him to realize once again how much i love him.  i guess that life is funny like that, though.  sometimes it takes us realizing what we may not ever have again to notice that we can't really live without it.  whatever it may be.