- Joined
- Aug 1, 2017
- Messages
- 24
- Purraise
- 62
Roughly seven weeks ago I missed my streetcar stop on the way home from a movie. I've never been so thankful for my inattentiveness. That lengthened midnight walk led me through a parking lot where a tiny orange kitten stood alone in the dark, crying for help. Cradled in one hand, I rushed him home, making slightly panicked phone calls.
No, the only person I knew with a nursing cat was just about done weaning her kittens, and besides, who knows what diseases the little feral city cat could carry?
The ASPCA may take him, but its kitten season, and I saw posts from my local shelters looking for fosters daily. No, I had decided, this guy was my responsibility. At least until the morning.
In a mildly hysteric phone call I asked my confused boyfriend to get to the store and get kitten formula.
I bathed him, and slowly discovered a plethora of issues. He was constantly sniffly. Under the kitten fuzz, he was mostly bones and fleas. Something was wrong with his skin; his tail was swollen and scabby, and his feet and ankles had big dirt-colored scabs too. Some of you guys know this part of the story.
Its the part where I join TCS and ask about skin conditions.
A vet visit later confirmed ringworm. And upper respiratory infection.
My plans of handing him off to a more experienced individual evaporated. I couldn't pass my walking fungus vehicle off to contaminate the animal shelter.l or a foster's home. I signed off my free time and much of my sleeping time as round the clock syringe feeder, medicine doser, anti fungal dipper, and kitty butt wiper. It helped that I was already getting attached to him, despite vet warnings that he may not make it through the week. He mostly slept at this point, and he has always been a deep sleeper. I loved playing with his toes and petting his newly round tummy while he dreamed. Sometimes he would twitch his legs and ears and purr in his sleep.
Other times he would jolt awake from heavy sleep, hissing madly until he remembered where he was. I wondered, then, what his life must have been like before I found him. It seemed like he had bad dreams, especially at night, and sometime he would hiss at nothing and arch his back at shadows.
He was growing faster than I could even comprehend. Within 5 days his body had doubled in size, catching up to the big round head that earned him the Cakepop part of his name.
Every weekend I packed up all his supplies and took him to my sister's house, where my nephews and sister could continue taking care of him until I got home from work each day.
Her doberman, Bella, was slightly frightened of him. She has anxiety, especially about unfamiliar things. The little dog, though? She loved him. The minute Sandy saw him she wanted to take care of him and lick his scabs. We had to keep her away so she wouldn't catch his ringworm, but that was an endeavor we eventually gave up on, opting instead to give her an antifungal bath every once in a while and let her immune system do the rest.
Cake grew into a feisty little monster. We knew from a very young age that he was a fighter. He never forgot where he came from, I think. A wild streetcat through and through.
He endured far more baths and dips than any kitten deserves, and he took it like a champ. Every time I bathed him I was surprised he didn't hate me after.
He kept getting bigger, to the point where sometimes I would wake uo astounded at how much he could grow. And he got feistier too.
His health was steadily climbing, and we learned that after so many car rides, he was used to it, liked it, even. I would put him in his harness and let him stand up to the windows or sit on my sister's lap. He was turning into an adventurer, and we let him run errands with us.
When he finally got a clean bill of health, negative FIV and FeLV tests and his first vaccines, I was ecstatic. I thought, we're finally out of the woods.
I got to pick up the kitten I had planned to adopt until I found my contagious little puffball and decided to delay it. At thirteen weeks, Steve could finally come home. Those two got along swell.
But the /finally I have both of my boys/ phase didn't last. Cake lost his appetite, started vomiting. Even after he threw up everything in his tummy, he kept vomiting bile. I had my boyfriend come get Steve while i kept Cake at my sister's house to keep an eye on him. The vet was closed already. He went to sleep in bed with me. I found someone to take my shift and slept, worried, but hopeful about a vet visit the next day.
When I woke up, he was in the closet, very lethargic. He wouldn't drink, so I spooned water into his mouth and wrapped him in a blanket to get to the vet after we dropped the nephews off at school. The vet wasn't open yet, but at 8 I called them and told them the situation, and they agreed to see him immediately. When I got there he was worse, barely able to summon the energy to open his eyes. They rushed off and left me panicked and confused in a waiting room.
I had been half-convinced he had swallowed sometjing and had a foreign body blocking his tummy.
They warmed him up and got fluids into him through an IV, got him on oxygen, stabilized his blood sugar. They told me that he had fought them about the IV and in general, like he just about always does. I laughed, relieved that he was feeling better.
But x-rays revealed nothing, and further tests showed his white blood cell count was low. He fell back asleep soon. They left me with him for a little while. He was so weak and lethargic, and he seemed unable to see me, though he responded in hoarse, weak little mews when I talked to him.
After a little while he seemed to have trouble breathing and I called the vets back in.
They explained that they didn't think he was going to get better, he wasn't responding to stimuli, his condition was getting worse again. We had been there for four hours. They offered to refer me to a veterinary hospital, but warned they would be expensive and may not be able to help. Sobbing, I asked them what I should do, and my vet just shook her head and said she didn't then he was going to make it. I signed the papers and wailed when they left me alone with his body. It felt - still feels - unreal. He was doing so well, and in a day he was torn away from me. They think it was panleukopenia.
I took him home and buried him in his fox blanket in my back yard.
Sometimes I wake up at night and want to go lie by his grave. He was afraid to be outside at night. I am irrationally guilty that he's alone out there.
I loved him. I was obsessed with him. I spent so much time researching which kitten foods were best, and how to teach him good manners and getting him used to walking on his leash. If I wasn't at work, we were inseparable. I don't know if I would have made it through my first two months in my apartment without throwing in the towel and breaking my lease if it hadn't been for him. My roommate situation isn't great, most days I'm still the only one cleaning up and I feel isolated a lot of the time, but my baby brightened my day, every single day. I miss waking up to him resting in the crook of my arm or stretched out under my chin.
...or pulling my hair and screaming at me. I even miss that.
I can hardly bare his absence.
I did my best to save you, itty bitty.
No, the only person I knew with a nursing cat was just about done weaning her kittens, and besides, who knows what diseases the little feral city cat could carry?
The ASPCA may take him, but its kitten season, and I saw posts from my local shelters looking for fosters daily. No, I had decided, this guy was my responsibility. At least until the morning.
In a mildly hysteric phone call I asked my confused boyfriend to get to the store and get kitten formula.
I bathed him, and slowly discovered a plethora of issues. He was constantly sniffly. Under the kitten fuzz, he was mostly bones and fleas. Something was wrong with his skin; his tail was swollen and scabby, and his feet and ankles had big dirt-colored scabs too. Some of you guys know this part of the story.
Its the part where I join TCS and ask about skin conditions.
A vet visit later confirmed ringworm. And upper respiratory infection.
My plans of handing him off to a more experienced individual evaporated. I couldn't pass my walking fungus vehicle off to contaminate the animal shelter.l or a foster's home. I signed off my free time and much of my sleeping time as round the clock syringe feeder, medicine doser, anti fungal dipper, and kitty butt wiper. It helped that I was already getting attached to him, despite vet warnings that he may not make it through the week. He mostly slept at this point, and he has always been a deep sleeper. I loved playing with his toes and petting his newly round tummy while he dreamed. Sometimes he would twitch his legs and ears and purr in his sleep.
He was growing faster than I could even comprehend. Within 5 days his body had doubled in size, catching up to the big round head that earned him the Cakepop part of his name.
Every weekend I packed up all his supplies and took him to my sister's house, where my nephews and sister could continue taking care of him until I got home from work each day.
Her doberman, Bella, was slightly frightened of him. She has anxiety, especially about unfamiliar things. The little dog, though? She loved him. The minute Sandy saw him she wanted to take care of him and lick his scabs. We had to keep her away so she wouldn't catch his ringworm, but that was an endeavor we eventually gave up on, opting instead to give her an antifungal bath every once in a while and let her immune system do the rest.
Cake grew into a feisty little monster. We knew from a very young age that he was a fighter. He never forgot where he came from, I think. A wild streetcat through and through.
He endured far more baths and dips than any kitten deserves, and he took it like a champ. Every time I bathed him I was surprised he didn't hate me after.
He kept getting bigger, to the point where sometimes I would wake uo astounded at how much he could grow. And he got feistier too.
His health was steadily climbing, and we learned that after so many car rides, he was used to it, liked it, even. I would put him in his harness and let him stand up to the windows or sit on my sister's lap. He was turning into an adventurer, and we let him run errands with us.
When he finally got a clean bill of health, negative FIV and FeLV tests and his first vaccines, I was ecstatic. I thought, we're finally out of the woods.
I got to pick up the kitten I had planned to adopt until I found my contagious little puffball and decided to delay it. At thirteen weeks, Steve could finally come home. Those two got along swell.
But the /finally I have both of my boys/ phase didn't last. Cake lost his appetite, started vomiting. Even after he threw up everything in his tummy, he kept vomiting bile. I had my boyfriend come get Steve while i kept Cake at my sister's house to keep an eye on him. The vet was closed already. He went to sleep in bed with me. I found someone to take my shift and slept, worried, but hopeful about a vet visit the next day.
When I woke up, he was in the closet, very lethargic. He wouldn't drink, so I spooned water into his mouth and wrapped him in a blanket to get to the vet after we dropped the nephews off at school. The vet wasn't open yet, but at 8 I called them and told them the situation, and they agreed to see him immediately. When I got there he was worse, barely able to summon the energy to open his eyes. They rushed off and left me panicked and confused in a waiting room.
I had been half-convinced he had swallowed sometjing and had a foreign body blocking his tummy.
They warmed him up and got fluids into him through an IV, got him on oxygen, stabilized his blood sugar. They told me that he had fought them about the IV and in general, like he just about always does. I laughed, relieved that he was feeling better.
But x-rays revealed nothing, and further tests showed his white blood cell count was low. He fell back asleep soon. They left me with him for a little while. He was so weak and lethargic, and he seemed unable to see me, though he responded in hoarse, weak little mews when I talked to him.
After a little while he seemed to have trouble breathing and I called the vets back in.
They explained that they didn't think he was going to get better, he wasn't responding to stimuli, his condition was getting worse again. We had been there for four hours. They offered to refer me to a veterinary hospital, but warned they would be expensive and may not be able to help. Sobbing, I asked them what I should do, and my vet just shook her head and said she didn't then he was going to make it. I signed the papers and wailed when they left me alone with his body. It felt - still feels - unreal. He was doing so well, and in a day he was torn away from me. They think it was panleukopenia.
I took him home and buried him in his fox blanket in my back yard.
Sometimes I wake up at night and want to go lie by his grave. He was afraid to be outside at night. I am irrationally guilty that he's alone out there.
I loved him. I was obsessed with him. I spent so much time researching which kitten foods were best, and how to teach him good manners and getting him used to walking on his leash. If I wasn't at work, we were inseparable. I don't know if I would have made it through my first two months in my apartment without throwing in the towel and breaking my lease if it hadn't been for him. My roommate situation isn't great, most days I'm still the only one cleaning up and I feel isolated a lot of the time, but my baby brightened my day, every single day. I miss waking up to him resting in the crook of my arm or stretched out under my chin.
...or pulling my hair and screaming at me. I even miss that.
I can hardly bare his absence.
I did my best to save you, itty bitty.
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