It's 2:30 am. I've hardly slept. Bob and Spencer are both sick now.

Spencer, who purrs almost 24/7, stopped purring. He also stopped grooming himself and has begun to sneeze loudly. Spencer's scarred sinus tissue, from an illness when he was a kitten, causes him to wheeze. Normally, he manages just fine, but now the URI is making it harder for him to breathe. I'm freaking out.

Bob with FIV+ has been, at first, looking as though he has a hairball and has been having LOUD, BARKING coughing fits. I gave him Petromalt twice today, but it doesn't help. I think Bob's getting stuffed up and the post nasal drip is making him cough.

Bob, too, has all but stopped purring. And he, too, purrs loudly ALL the time.

What the FUCK am I going to do? I just tried to give Bob a does of Baytril. That stuff is terrible. It's a thick, creamy liquid. WHY give it to a cat that's stuffed up? It only makes them have a harder time breathing and both Bob and Nora (who is still VERY sick) react to the med by oozing thick, ropey, strands of mucus! This is NOT helpful to their well being. WHY Dr. M. suggested this shit is beyond my understanding.

Tomorrow I'm going to beg to get someone over here with enough Baytril, in PILL form, to treat everyone. What else can I do? All but two cats are sick. This is a nightmare I want to wake up from!!!!! Sadly, it's 2:49 AM and I'm awake and I doubt I'll get back to sleep any time soon.

Meanwhile, Sam is asleep. How can he sleep through all these cats coughing and sneezing so loud?

As some of you may know, for the better part of the last year, every Wednesday I drove a few miles to one of the local diners. Behind the diner, in a back corner of the parking lot, where a thick grove of trees and a few boulders stood, hid a feral cat feeding station.

Our uber-trapper, cat rescuer, Ms. K., set up the feeding station, along wtih an insulated feral cat house. Ms. K. had been feeding and trapping and Vetting all the cats that found their way to our little place. Over the years she rescued and helped many many cats and had a small network of volunteer "feeders" who would take turns to visit the feeding station every day, rain or shine, to make sure if there was a feral cat around, they would be fed.

Just last month, I took in a 6 month old kitten, named Smokey, who had been found abandoned with her pregnant Mother.

It was surprising to many of us that there were any cats still coming to find a meal, since it was more than six months of trips that I had seen any sign of a cat. Ms. K. was even sure there was no chance of any more cats and since someone had abandoned friendly cats at our feeding station, we knew we had to close it down for fear of it becoming a dumping ground for more cats.

I thought it was a good idea, too, and asked to be relieved of my weekly duties, only making myself available to feed, as needed, our one "for sure" feral kitty, Baby, who lives near a small cinderblock office building in town.

Things seemed fine with the arrangement until today.

Today I got an email from Ms. K. saying she had been back to formally close down the feeding station and to remove the feral cat house for good. Upon opening the top of the house, she was greatly saddened and shocked to find the body of a dead cat, most likely who had starved to death and found her last moments of life, hidden away in a small shelter trying to fend off the frigid temperatures.

Ms. K has seen more than her share of dead cats, but it effected her deeply. I wasn't with her at the time and it hit me hard, too. I let this cat down. I gave up, only thinking about how it could be difficult to fit a run to the diner into my day. This poor creature may have been a sibling to the very same dear kitten I had fostered so recently. She may have searched for her Mother and sister and, unable to fend for herself, slowly weakened until she perished.

I was at work when I got the email and I admit to having to struggle to hide my tears. The cat was black and a female. I had lost a feral cat months ago and I wondered if it was her or if she met the same fate, too. It's been since March since I last saw my little feral girl and it all just felt like too much.

Ms. K. says to focus on the successes and to put the losses away. We failed this cat and she suffered terribly because of it. She is only one of MILLIONS who die every year and with the economy doing so badly, I fear those numbers will grow.

This also was a message to me, a reminder. I've been grappling with a house full of sick cats. They may have gotten sick from the Fostering I've done. I was thinking I needed to stop for good, to protect my cats from further harm, but then I think about this one, small cat who never got to know life in a warm room, with good food to eat and a compassionate human companion to look out for her well being.

All she got to know was the cold, dark night. An empty belly. Fear and despair.

For that, I must continue on. I must not give up or give in. I must keep helping more cats beat the odds.

It was so quiet here yesterday. The "boys," all four of them, were hanging out in the living room, while the three girls were in the quarantine room. No one was fighting or getting under foot. I could even walk from my office to the kitchen without tripping over a cat. In a way, it was nice, but kinda creepy, too.

Last night none of the cats came upstairs to sleep with us. I called out to Spencer, since he usually sleeps with me. If I call, he'll run like the dickens up two flights of stairs and bounce into bed with me. Not last night. He didn't bother to come up until almost dawn.

While I had the luxury of not falling asleep in a pretzel shape and waking up with a backache, I also felt very alone. I can't say I liked the feeling much.

I thought about life six years ago. I only had two cats and one foster cat (Spencer). My furnishings hadn't been destroyed by cat urine and I had money in the bank because my pet food bill was less than my grocery bill. I didn't realize it at the time, but the house really felt way too big. A few cats can't hog a bed or drive me insane when they're hungry. They're so easy to feed and have play time with when you have less than four. I must have had a lot more free time, too. Where did it all go?

Now I'm trying to get Christmas related tasks done so I can go back to work tomorrow and not be angry that I don't have any free time to get more Christmas related tasks (e.g., shopping) done. But, everything feels like wading through knee-deep shit. I'm so scared Bob is getting sick. Nicky sneezes and I wonder if he's next. Nora is so sick, I worry she will never recover. She's a nightmare to medicate and coughs and violently heaves, long stringy mucusy snots once I get the Baytril into her.

Petunia freaks out, too. She only gets 1.4cc of antibiotics. It would take a second to give it to her, but she has to be wrapped like a mummy in a towel and won't hold still while I give her the meds. Once she gets them she runs off upset. It upsets me, too. I don't want to distress her, but I've gotta do this. I'm tired and frustrated. Sam is tired and frustrated. We are both pissed at each other and this situation.

We don't know if we should start Bob on meds. If he's sick now, which I think he is, he may be fine in a few more days with no meds. He may be brewing a bacterial something and if we medicated him now, it would kick it in the ass. If we give him meds he doesn't need, the antibiotics would open him up to other things the antibiotic doesn't treat and he could get sick with something worse.

Oh yeah, and this is Day TWO of meds.

Eight more days to go.

Merry #@!!&$#@ Christmas.

...Oh yeah...and we have a mouse running around our living room and our only mousers are in quarantine. I fear the news is going to get out and more mice are going to come in.

It was one thing to have Gracie become so ill, with so many ailments: Bartonella, Miliary Dermatitis and an Upper Respiratory Infection. I don't know how or what caused her illnesses, but it was right after her getting a dental procedure that her skin got inflamed and her nose stuffed up. It may have been a coincidence or Gracie had stress and got a rash and cold from it. Who knows?

Over the past 4 weeks of her confinement, she's improved greatly, though she looks worse for wear. Her once beautiful charcoal gray plush coat is tattered by large shaved zones (to promote her skin healing and to allow me access to apply twice daily medication to those bad patches). Her ears still have bald spots, but her sneezing is gone and she has gained back some of the weight she lost. Sadly, she still has to be confined. I thought it would only be a few more days, but as of yesterday, it will be another 10 days before I can free her from the quarantine room.

File under: "Learn from Your Mistakes"

Last Saturday we took Gracie in for a re-check. Since our cat, Nora needed her semi-regular "butt shave," I thought it would be a GREAT idea to bring her with us and have the Vet get her rear end trimmed since she can't clean "back there." Nora weighs over 22 lbs and I can't handle her in the carrier myself. Since Sam was available to help, this would be a good thing, right?

WRONG!

While we were in the car, Gracie sneezed a few times. That was all it took. By the next day, shaved butt and all, Nora began sneezing, too.

Anyone who knows me, knows I'm a Nervous Nelly about my cat's well being. I take them to the Vet as soon as they even look at me funny. This said, I've been trying NOT to run them to the Vet for every little thing. I've been learning to wait it out a bit and see if I can deal with it myself. With Bob it has worked well and with a case of Upper Respiratory going around the house, I figured Nora would be fine in a few days. I know that if it's viral, there's nothing we can do. I sat tight and waited...meanwhile Nora started to sneeze more violently and I started to worry that not only would she get sicker, but the remaining five cats would be sick soon, too.

Sure enough, in a few days, Petunia began to sneeze. Nora was looking worse, but no discharge, so no Vet. Friday night I picked Gracie up from her weekly antifungal bath and told super-Debbie, the Vet Tech, that I was worried but not going to bring Nora to the Vet. Of course, later that night I changed my mind when I saw Nora's nose running and Petunia, normally a vibrant cat, was limp on her cat bed with her eyes looking puffy.

The next morning we go to the Vet. Nora and Petunia cried and whined the entire 15 minute drive there. Nora sneezed up a storm. I had them both in separate carriers, covered, promising myself I would make sure they stayed covered as to keep them from spreading things at the Vet's office.

Once there Nora behaved like a champ. She was running a fever and her head was stuffed up. Her lungs were in good shape.

Next on the exam table was Petunia. Petunia overreacts to everything, so they covered her to keep her quiet.

Needless to say, the rectal exam was not her favorite part of her visit, but even worse, to her, was the insult of having her claws trimmed. She SCREAMED BLOODY MURDER. You would think she was having her legs amputated without sedation.

At the end of the exam, we decided to put Nora and Petunia on Baytril and also watch Bob for any signs of disease. If Bob got sick, it might kill him. Being FIV+, Bob cannot be near sick cats. We decided to quarantine Nora and Petunia in the same room with Gracie. It's all we have, other than a bathroom, that can be shut away from the rest of the house. Nora and Petunia hate each other's guts, so I knew this would be extra shitty for all concerned.

The Baytril set us back $150!!!!!!!!!...between injections and the gallon sized bottle. They have to be on meds for 10 days. This means all three cats in one small room and all the others are wondering where the heck they went. The change in the house is dramatic. We are all cranky and sad and it's strangely quiet.

I'm going to wish that for Christmas I have a house full of healthy cats, once again. I thought I was doing right by not rushing Nora to the Vet when she first started sneezing. After all, Gracie was fine in a few days, but she was also on zithromax for Bartonella, so she would fare better, right?

I keep thinking I know so much about cat wellness and behavior, but I keep being reminded I have so much more to learn.

It's a fancy way of saying; "I have no idea. It's some sort of rash, caused by bacteria, a fungus, an allergy to SOMETHING or something else I forgot to list."

Yeah, very helpful.

More on Miliary Dermatitis

About four weeks ago, I took Gracie to the Vet for a dental cleaning and an extraction of one of her teeth. While she was anesthetized, Dr. Larry noticed Gracie had a nasty infection in both of her ears. Somehow I had not even noticed this! My bad!

I brought Gracie home, along with ear meds and an oral antibiotic. I also had her tested for BARTONELLA, a test which I had insisted on running, even though Gracie doesn't go outdoors. Good thing I asked for it, though I was shocked at the results. Yet another one of my cats that has come up positive! This makes three out of seven cats that have or had Bartonella. All but one of the gang has not been tested and he may have been the original carrier and he will be the toughest one to get to the Vet to test.

All I know is, I gotta medicate a shy, skittish cat for THREE WEEKS.

Great.

I tried. I really tried to coax, fool, and bamboozle Gracie to allow me to get my hands on her for the once-a-day medication. It wasn't working. After only getting her meds five out of ten days, I called Dr. Larry and he suggested locking her up in a room for the next THREE WEEKS.

I really didn't want to do that. Not only would she be lonely, but it would through off the "pecking order" in the house and I knew I'd have to re-introduce her to the cats if she was away from them for so long. I decided it the three weeks would pass no matter what, so better to have her away from the other cats while she was being treated.

Ugh.

So our last night as a family, I was petting Gracie. I noticed she'd had some crud, felt like scabs on the back of her ear. I looked more closely and saw that Gracie had two spots, one on each ear, where the fur was gone. I parted the fur on her head and saw a nasty sore. Then I found another one on her shoulders.

SHIT.

Does Gracie have RINGWORM??????!!!!!!

(Gracie was shaved so we could better see any changes in her condition. This is a few days after treatment)

The next morning, Gracie and I went to visit Dr. Larry. She didn't have sores on her head and shoulders, she had them ALL OVER HER BODY. Crusty, some bloody, awful looking. I felt terrible for missing this, but when and how did it happen? Did she get it at the Vet? Was it brewing before then? Was it an allergic reaction? She also LOST 1/2 pound in the two weeks that had passed between her dental and me bringing her back with the rash.

Dr. Larry and his partner Dr M. both agreed it was probably Miliary Dermatitis and not ringworm. The test for ringworm will be done in a few more days, but for now it looks like a reaction to something...but what? They ran more blood work. It came back so clean that Dr Larry said it was the blood work of a KITTEN! Yay for feeding grain-free, at least!

After a shot of steroids, in just a day, Gracie's skin was looking MUCH better. Gracie has also had two anti-fungal baths and those keep her comfortable. I don't see her scratching at herself, so I think she's doing all right.

With all the craziness, I was sure she should stop her antibiotics, in case she was allergic to them, but Dr. Larry felt we should continue. Gracie's ears cleared up nicely and her skin looks better, NOW she is SNEEZING a lot!

Ugh, again!

Gracie has 9 more days of confinement, unless she has ringworm. I'm not showing any signs of any outbreak and Sam seems fine, as well. It's a good thing Gracie's away from Bob, with his FIV he could not easily fight off any of Gracie's issues and I don't want to think about a house full of sick cats that need daily medication. That would be a NIGHTMARE.

Gracie also put some weight back on. Other than being lonely, she's doing well. She'll have one more bath this week and the ringworm test will confirm what our next steps will be.

And no, I'm not fostering any cats, maybe not until next year or maybe I have to stop for good. In the middle of all of this craziness, things have gotten worse where I volunteer and I may need to resign and move on. More on that...in the next installment.

Little Smokey, who was "too old" for our program, but through the efforts of our super-trapper, who rescued her and who fought for her, not only did Smokey enter our program, little Smokey was adopted in less than two weeks.

She wasn't here long enough for me to be sad when she left. In fact, I found myself feeling quite happy for her. Her new family, a semi-retired couple, made quite an impression on me.

Dolores and Dick, what lovely people, came over to visit with Smokey and, I found out later, had decided to adopt her from the photo I took that was posted in the local paper (see my post, Lady of the Manor to see the photo). Good thing, too, because Smokey showed badly. She ran off, did not want to be held, but, at least, did not hide. She stayed a careful distance from all of us and was very alert and interested in playing with a toy Dick was jiggling in front of her. She gave her new owners a wary sniff. I promised them that she really was a sweetheart. I had held her like a baby in my arms not even a few moments before they arrived. She purred when I entered the room. Why couldn't she do that now?

Dick told me about their previous cat. This cat should have been called; Miracle, because he survived being attacked by a coyote! The cat barely survived, but in time he was back to his old self. It didn't take long, though, before the cat was, yes, captured by HAWK. Dick heard his cat screaming, looked up to see his big tom-cat being flown out of the yard! Lucky for the kitty, the hawk dropped him. Dick said that was because the hawk wanted to break the legs of his cat to impair it enough to be killed. The cat didn't break a bone and went on to live the rest of his life indoors.

Meanwhile, Dick, like his cat, has survived four heart attacks (the second one was the "lucky" heart attack because it was discovered he had kidney cancer when he was hospitalized for his heart and the cancer was treated by removing the cancerous kidney). He had recently been in the hospital for two weeks, then came home and fell down the stairs. He had pnuemonia, broken ribs and God knows what else, from the latest fall. He'd only been out of the hospital a few days before he came to my house. It was all I could do to keep myself from either hugging him hard or hoping he didn't keel over in my living room.

His wife was just nicer than nice. I liked both of them very much. When they took Smokey away, she told me it was "love at first sight" for her and Smokey. I knew this was a good fit. I just wish they hadn't named her: Lady Fraidy Gray!

I'm starting to realize I'm not the evil bitch I thought I was. Over the past few years since I've been volunteering, I've frequently had some, err, "moments of tension" with one of the ladies who runs the organization. I've been told I'm the only person who has ever made her cry, due to being frustrated or angry in dealing with me, but on the other hand, I'm at my wits end because there's little planning for the design projects I do, little time to do them in and the worst-barely any communication regarding design direction. There are also edits upon edits-most of them could have been shaved down to just one or two with some forethought.

As any graphic designer will tell you, you only get as good as you give (direction). I can't read anyone's mind, though I do try often enough. If my clients don't like what they get, they can point the blame partly at themselves. This is never understood for some reason.

Needless to say, considering I'm doing this for FREE, I can't even write off the hours I volunteer doing design work; it only leaves me with the goal of doing a good job, but that's based on my own subjective measure. I also get to a point of doing endless revisions where I get pissed off. so there! I'm human.

Apparently, I'm not allowed to show emotion...

UPDATE: While I'm writing this entry, I get an email about the Holiday Card I just designed. In so many words...do the whole thing over again, I don't like it. Well, I didn't get any direction other than; "use this text and use this photo"...yeah...I think I'm to a point where it's a waste of time. I'm really tired of banging my head against a wall and I didn't even get to make my point:

I spoke with someone who's known said person-I-butt-heads-with and she surprised me by saying some not too flattering things about this person's management style, or lack thereof. Words like: Passive-aggressive came up, as well as: rigid. It make me realize that it's a two way street and it wasn't all my fault. Here I was feeling guilty and beating myself up for being an awful person. Okay, I can be awful, but I'm not like 100% awful!

Huh.

So here I sit, pissed off and trying to figure out what to say in reply to the "I hope I don't offend you" email. I feel like telling her to go stuff it and "HAPPY HOLIDAYS" to you, too.

Oh..and all I really want to do is HELP SAVE CATS LIVES and make their lives better. Am I doing that? Not hardly.

There's a very sweet lady in town who seems to attract homeless cats. Last year I went to her palacial home to photograph a very timid, adult cat. We couldn't bring her in as a foster and she needed socializing. This nice lady kept her in her own room until she could find a forever home. Now I love cats, you know that, but this cat hid under the furniture and cowered in the corner. The best photo I could get of her was not exactly appealing. At least she didn't look terrified!

So little Meadow (above) got adopted. It took a few months, but our nice foster lady didn't mind, as long as the cat got a good home.

Another year has passed and another cat has found her way to Lady H's home. This kitty started out being wild, but in time, no surprise, the cat became friendly. She probably remembered her former life with humans. She ran away from home, or was dumped off. However she found Lady H, along the way, she lost most of her tail.

The kitty is very sweet and playful and spends her days outside. Lady H makes sure she comes in at night to keep her safe from predators and warm, now that winter is slowly approaching. Again, Lady H will have the luxury of time, unlike myself who has to place my foster in two weeks. The more I think about it, the more I feel the need to rebel. It's not fair to put this cat into a shelter where she won't show well and she will begin to revert back to being fearful. She's doing well here and seems very content. I want her to have the luxury of time, but there, supposedly are more kittens waiting to be fostered OR..am I being played? Are they telling me they need me to step in when I know the cats are already in a foster home now? Hmmm...

Whatever the case is, this charming stubby tailed cat, who likes to fetch and play with sticks, needs a permanent home. She loves little kids and I think she'd be a great family member!

Now can I please stop having to write about homeless cats and cat who've been dumped?

I wish.

This is Smokey, as promised.

Isn't she lovely?

Who would love to adopt her??!