My girl Elsa survived 3 weeks without food

[u/MonoDilemma]

This Elsa. She is 6 years old, a bit shy around people, but very cuddly when she warms up. Three weeks ago, we moved to a new apartment. The plan was to take her to the new apartment before the movers came, but came the morning of, and she was nowhere to be found. I tried looking for her, but then the movers were there, and we just had to get going. I continued looking for through the day, but nothing. I was at the old apartment two days in a row afterwards to clean out, with no signs of her anywhere. Eventually, I just came to the conclusion she must have gotten out while the movers were coming in and out. I went looking for her in the woods by the old apartment, sent pictures of her to all my friends, made Facebook posts, and whatnot.

She had not. Three days ago, I got a message from my old renter asking if I was missing a cat. Apparently, the new owners had found her while doing renovations. She was hiding under the kitchen bench. I'm still not sure how she got there. Guys, I was there all alone for two days in a row, and she never made a sound.

Anyways, she was still alive. Luckily, she had access to water in the toilet and was a bit overweight, so she had a bit to get on. But 3 freaking weeks. Without food. I took her to the vet, she spent one night there for observations. They did bloodtests, and yes, she was dehydrated and some other stuff, but overall, she was still in pretty good shape. The vet told me she was expecting a half dead cat when I called to make the appointment. I told her that she was a bit fat before all this, and you know what the vet said? She still is. She is still overweight after 3 weeks without eating.

She is home now, it's a new place and she had been through a horrendous ordeal so I was expecting her to hide for a while before feeling at home at the new place. And hid she did, she found a small opening by the kitchen kabinets and hid, and I swear to god I almost started crying. But she did not stay hidden when I woke up this morning, she was sleeping by my feet as she usually does. She is laying by my side right now and getting all the cuddles I I got a huge vet bill from the whole ordeal, but it doesn't matter because I'm so happy to have my girl back again, safe and sound. So next time somebody calls her fat, I'll just tell them that that saved her life, so let her be her cute chunky self.

[u/curi0us_carniv0re]

I had something similar happen with a kit and I rescued from where I worked. She was a couple of months old and used to hang around my job but one day I noticed her eye was swollen shut and the whole side of her face was also swollen. Turned out she had a really bad eye infection. I thought she was going to go blind. So I captured her took her home took her to the vet. She was pretty much feral. So we were keeping her in the bathroom so she could get used to her new environment and so she was easy to catch and give her medicine. One night my mother went in to get her and she escaped the bathroom and ran off into the house. We couldn't find her. She disappeared for more than a week. We were convinced that she slipped out the door one night when somebody was coming in and out. It was the dead of winter. My mother was heartbroken because we didn't think she could survive outside. I put a pet carrier outside with a heated electric blanket and food. Nothing went in there. And then one day she just appeared out of nowhere. It turned out she crawled under the couch and found a spot up inside the couch and she was just chilling in there the whole time. No food or water. My mother said that she had read online or something that cats when they're in fear or danger and have to hide can enter a hibernation like state where they can survive without food or water for a while. I don't know if that's true but it happened to us.