Insulation situation: Kitty gets encased in foam

Meet Orangina, Ram and Shola’s cuddly—and aptly named—kitty.

When it came time to pick out a second cat, Ram and Shola’s family decided to adopt from a nearby shelter. There, they found an instant connection with an irresistible little orange kitten.

“My son and I saw Orangina online and we went to see her at the shelter,” Shola remembers. “And she kissed my son on the nose, and we said, ‘Aww. We have to have this one.’”

Once home, Orangina was a natural fit with her new parents and their other pets. She quickly asserted her place in the family, and even learned how to express her opinions to her mom and dad.

Shola says, “Orangina … she knows that she’s the boss and she asserts that a lot. She says ‘No’ if she doesn’t like it. And she says ‘hello,’ and ‘thank you.’”

However, Orangina’s outspoken, sometimes headstrong approach to life occasionally gets her into unusual situations, like when one wrong turn resulted in her Hambone-nominated incident.

What happened?

On the day of the incident, Ram was busy working when he noticed something odd outside.

“The neighbor’s son was standing outside … looking curiously at the front of the house,” he remembers. “I wondered what he was doing, and he was starting to walk up the path towards the house.”

Ram got up to find out what was going on. When he opened the door, he found a fur-raising surprise.

“There was Orangina—not looking recognizable at all,” Ram remembers. She was covered in sticky, plasticky goop all over. He quickly realized what was to blame: Spray foam insulation.

He continues, “My theory was that there’s some building work going on somewhere…. She must have gotten inside the wall or something, I don’t know exactly how.”

He adds “She looked like this massive blob of insulation with her tail sticking out here and some legs sticking out there … only a part of her face was visible.”

Startled, Ram picked Orangina up and tried to clean off the spray insulation. Unfortunately, the chemical foam had already hardened on her fur.

Unsure of a potential toxic risk, Ram rushed Orangina to the vet. There, she was given X-rays to ensure no insulation had been ingested. Then, the vet set to work freeing her from her foam cast.

“They had to shave her whiskers and ears. She was entirely free of hair,” Ram remembers.

“She looked really terrible,” Shola adds.

Fortunately, Orangina wasn’t hurt in any serious way. Within a few weeks, her fur started to grow back, and within six weeks all of her fur and whiskers had regrown.

How Nationwide helped

No one could have anticipated a spray foam insulation debacle like this—Orangina least of all. Fortunately, Ram and Shola had Nationwide pet insurance to support them through this unprecedented experience.

Ram says, “Our pets are a part of our family … we have to look after them just as we would after our own children. There’s no way that we would not have medical insurance for our children, right?”

He continues, “If they need an operation or something like that, you could end up paying thousands of dollars—it just makes a lot of sense to get insurance for them.”

Shola says, “Any stress or nasty surprises that you have, having this insurance really softens that and makes everything much easier.”