Cats and Essential Oils
Poppy
Poppy was the name of my son’s tuxedo cat who died not too long ago. Two years before, when my son and his family moved from our neighborhood to his wife’s family home 1500 miles away, Poppy was nowhere to be found and they had to drive away with broken hearts. About three weeks later, their former next door neighbor called me late one night and said the cat was back. The poor thing was half his weight, had an abscess on his back, and a terrible limp. The vet took x-rays and Poppy’s femur was dislocated from his hip by at least an inch. The vet kept him overnight with weights on the joint and tried to slip it back, but it had been too long. I took Poppy home to nurse him until my daughter-in-law Kate came back to visit.
At this point I had been learning about and using therapeutic grade essential oils for several months so I researched cats, ligaments, bones, etc. and decided to use a very diluted mix of a Young Living blend called Panaway. Cats are notorious for not liking oils, but Poppy loved to have me anoint his hip and pray for him and would lie purring in my lap. This went on for a couple of weeks during which time he gained back his weight and started walking with hardly a limp.
Then Kate and our three grandchildren (ages 1, 3, and 5) flew here for a visit. I bought a soft cat carrier for Poppy’s return home. He did not like the carrier one bit. In the car on the way to the airport he started to scream and clawed his way out of the carrier. Kate had her hands full with the children, so she took a bottle of Peace and Calming (another Young Living blend), slightly unscrewed the cap, and stuck it in the carrier. Poppy went silent and remained quiet and docile inside the carrier throughout the rest of the car ride, airport security, the two-hour flight, and the ride home. As soon as they opened the car door in their driveway, he ditched the carrier and ran into the house. A few weeks later all traces of the limp were gone and he spent the last two years of his life a happy, whole cat.
I know what the oils have done for me—no more asthma or allergy medicines after decades of use, peaceful sleep, protection and relief from insect bites, and lots of other benefits I forget as soon as I’m feeling better—but Poppy’s experience convinces me more than anything else of the healing power of the oils. This was no feline placebo effect; something powerful healed his hip and something else calmed his fear. God created plants with wonderful healing powers.
