Poop

Cupid does not care for me to read while I'm having one of my visits with her. She also likes to make sure she rubs her ringowrmy foot all over my book, my pants and anywhere else her rear left leg can reach.

In a way, I was grateful to her for interrupting my reading. I took it as a cosmic approval that the book sucked as much as I feared and I really shouldn't bother with it. I'd forced myself to read up to page 100 because the author is a famous, fancy-pants, but I just didn't get it. The story had too many back stories and not enough “forward” story. It just annoyed me. It annoys me to even write about it. I wanted to slap him and declare; “GET ON WITH THE F-ING STORY, will ya?!”

Who is the author, you ask? I can't say. It would be unprofessional of me to reveal HIS name because HE wrote something that was made into a crappy mini-series AND he won a Pulitzer for one of his novels. And he lives in Maine. And his latest book is about Cape Cod. That's all I'm sayin' and NO, I do not think the book was “FUNNY” as I've seen others declare.

He wrote about getting crapped on by a seagull. That is NOT funny. It's especially not funny if you're traveling in Scotland, with a family you just met, and a giant flying rat craps down your arm, in front of two young children, who are suddenly shocked into silence because they have good manners, but whose eyes are about to pop out of their heads because they want to laugh so badly. They wait for a nod of the pooped-upon to let them know it's all right to laugh their asses off, while you try to swab away the shit storm on your sleeve.

See? It's funny when I tell about MY experience of being pooped on, but in this book eh, not so much. Plus, being pooped on is just a few lines of a bigger story. It's not going to win anyone a SECOND Pulitzer, 'cause if there was a Poop Pulitzer, well, stand back because I would surely win it!

Yesterday was tough for me. I woke up at 7am, after only five hours of sleep. I was up late the night before because I hadn't spent enough time with Cupid and her kittens since they arrived. I've made sure they've had plenty to eat and drink and a clean litter pan, but that's about all the time I've had. I've been so busy running the sick cats back and forth to the vet, spending time with Dash (he's alone most of the day and I take him out and run him around as much as I can) and dealing with the many applications from hopeful adopters, calling them, calling vets, calling our Director, getting photos of them to the paper, that it left me having to wait until midnight before I could start to have some real time with them.

Cupid lets me know how she feels about me.

Cupid is laid back and sweet. The first days she was here, she spent a great deal of time, pressed up in the corner of the big dog crate I use when I need to separate cats from each other. She looked depressed. The many weeks of life in a cage had probably taught her that life was meant to be spent sitting in one spot, all day, up against metal bars. I thought she might not be friendly, but that was not the case.

Cupid has slowly been allowing herself to rest on the bed, that has a big fluffy down comforter on it. I found her sitting on the cat condo by the window this afternoon. She seems content, but also fragile. It's tough to get her to eat, but once she starts she's all right. She's battling the same damn URI the other cats have and maybe her sense of smell is off. I worried about mastitis, but she seems fine when I checked her mammary glands. She's painfully thin, but even after a few days her coat has improved a lot. I think that one day she will really be a serious beauty, once she gets her health back.

If I could have rested in that moment, I would have been fine, but I had to talk to our Director about where Comet and Rudy were going to be living. Our Director was "done" with fostering and would only help in an emergency. I did NOT want either of the cats in my house. They were still quite sick and I didn't want MY cats to get sick or Cupid and her family to get sick! Sniffles are one thing, but raging high fever and bad congestion is a big problem.

I've got two rooms I can use. That's it. I have my big foster room for mama and the babies-done deal. I have a bathroom with a tiny laundry room attached-which is space two. I don't want ANY cats in that space. It's a nightmare to do laundry while there are cats in the room, plus it's too much work. It takes me about an hour per feeding to get everyone fed, fresh water, cleaned litter. If it's just one room plus my own guys, that's one thing, but an extra room of cats-not good.

I've got Dasher in room two. He can't be put back with Rudy and Comet. Dash is doing fairly well. He's eating great, running around, sneezing, but that's it. If I put those other sick cats in with him, I can't adopt him out on Wednesday.

I give Dash a break as often as I can, to get out of the tiny bathroom and run around in the bedroom. He's a joy to have around.

So I can't take them, the Director won't, I can't ask Jennifer because she has geriatric cats and it's too much to ask her to take on sick animals. I can't ask Rick, another foster, because he has six cats of his own. I had our Director ask our Vet to do a medical boarding of the cats until after Christmas-just to give me breathing room and maybe the cats would be healthy enough to not be such a high risk of getting my cats sick. They said, No. I called Dr. Larry and talked to Super Deb. It was weird that she answered the phone on a Monday (she doesn't usually work on Monday's), but I was grateful to talk to her. By the time I called her, I was in tears. I had tried to figure out how to deal with these sick cats. It wasn't my fault they were so sick, but it was on me to care for them. Thankfully, Super Deb said; YES, but it would COST. I felt at that point, there is no price I wouldn't pay for sanity. I honestly felt like I was about to crack from stress.

Now all I had to do was get Rudy to the Vet for a checkup. Pick up Comet from the same Vet, then drive over to Dr. Larry's office and have them both examined, then they would be boarded, but only for a few days. On Christmas eve they have to be picked up. Not ideal, but better than nothing. If I play my cards right, I can get Dash out of here (adopted) and slot the sick cats into my bathroom. Also, the sick ones would have 4 more days of meds-which would put them at just a week's worth. That might be enough to get them to a point where they are doing better.

Just as I was about to walk out the door to meet our Director to pick up Rudy and get him to the Vet for a re-check, I got a call. It was from Julia, Vixen's adopter. Vixen was sick. She broke with the URI and Julia wanted my advice. When she said: “Didn't get up this morning..not eating...vomiting” I urged her to get the kitten to the Vet-already done. She was going in shortly. Holy shit...that's four cats with this nasty URI. Of course I had warned Julia that this might happen and Julia is a great person-totally understanding. She doesn't have other cats so it was safe for her to bring Vixen home, but now that she was home, she was in trouble. I felt guilty and responsible. I have never and would never knowingly adopt out an animal that was sick. I was mortified. No wonder...a few hours later I found out that Vixen had close to a 106°F temp and had a SERIOUS EAR MITE INFECTION on top of that.

Ear mites are not that big of a deal, but in this case it was the straw the broke the camels back. NONE of these cats should have ear mites!!!!!Supposedly they were ALL checked by a VET before they left GA. Something wrong is going on. I don't know what it is, but I did ask Barb to find out. This is why we do the fundraiser-so we can afford to get the cats vetted before they come here. Transports don't cause ear mites-at least not this bad. And that, I found out later, was not even the half of it...

I got Rudy to the Vet. He looked marginally better. No weight change. No temp. Ate for us. Still very snotty and a bit teary. Had blood in his nasal discharge. They added one more med to his bag of tricks and said they wanted to check him in a week to ten days. “When can we get him to his new home???”...two weeks?? Yes. About that...we have to see how he's doing. Great. Now I may lose the adopters we have for Rudy and Comet, since Comet is only marginally better herself.

Comet was released with lots of meds. Her eyes look much better, but she is very snotty. She also was pooping out tapeworms. Nice!!! Were any of these cats really de-wormed or was it a lie? No problem I will deworm everyone again to make sure...again...what is going on here?

Now that the better part of the day was behind me, I had yet to get the cats over to see Dr. Larry. Actually, they saw Dr M. since Dr. Larry is off on Monday's. I loaded the cats into the car and drove through rush hour traffic just getting to his office on time. I dreaded going there partly because I knew I was going to see Julia and I was scared to find out if Vixen had taken a turn for the worse.

Super Deb looked over Rudy and re-checked his vital signs. Rudy was a playful little imp. Nothing seemed to bother him much. Deb stepped out of the room and I sat down, holding Rudy in my crossed arms. Rudy laid across my chest, like a baby. Deb opened the door and as she did, Rudy suddenly grabbed at my right boob and nipped my nipple-as though he was going to nurse off me!!! Debbie stopped frozen in her tracks, then stepped back out of the room, shouting “I didn't see that!” I had good laugh, but man was that FREAKY!!!!!! No pix. Sorry everyone!

Then Comet was checked out. She is really really thin and dehydrated, still. She had a fever, but that could be brought on by being in the car or her being due for another antibiotic OR she is running a fever. Regardless, she was going to be cared for by good people who have the skills to make sure she stays in better shape for a few more days. Then, she will be my problem, but for now I had a break...

...until Dr. M came into the room and ripped me a new asshole.

It wasn't enough that I was feeling horrible about so many cats being sick. That it was my fault that I subjected them to this awful transport and that they are too young to handle it. Well, some of the cats that are sick are 6 and 8 MONTHS old. The kittens are doing marginally better (other than Rudy). This also seems to be a great opportunity for people to give me shit about doing transports at all. You know...let me tell you this: the deal is done. I did the transport. The animals got sick for one reason or 100 reasons. Some are shitting worms. Some have ear mites and flea dirt. Let's get them well and not use this as a platform to make whatever point you want to make. Apparently, Dr. M did not get the memo because she launched into me about how the Practice is too small and that they don't have adequate quarantine facilities and if I wanted to get into a viral quarantine, well that would REALLy start to cost big bucks. That she couldn't completely decontaminate herself so it put the other patients at risk and if this was her Practice she would have not allowed these cats to be boarded at all. Then she told me about North Shore Animal League washing their hands of an adoption they did a few days before and that the puppy that was adopted was near death...then here's Vixen's adopters whose cat could also die from a high fever and how would I feel if my adopters had to face the DEATH of their cat just after adopting it? Hey...they KNEW the risks. I was very clear that Vix had been exposed to a nasty URI. That she got sick was bad, terrible, awful, rotten, BUT...why am I getting ripped on about this?

I seriously felt like I needed to just take the cats home. I started to imagine seeing Bob Dole and Spencer, dead. Neither of them could handle getting this f-ing virus-espeically Bob. I started to imagine that this rescue may be the worst thing I have ever done-with the best intentions I have ever had.

We've had many good runs. Many good transports with very happy outcomes. Now we are having a big problem and I'm basically on my own. I am very thankful I didn't get 12 cats instead of 9. I really would have been in trouble if that was the case.

I did my best to explain that we've learned that we cannot spay or neuter the cats before they leave GA. It's too much stress on them to do that, then transport them. Her reply was “Ya, THINK??!!!”...in a way, almost mocking, and certainly belittling me. I felt like I was an inch tall.

I left the exam room while Rudy and Comet were set up in their new home. I heard Julia's voice as I turned the corner. She saw me and I gave her a weak smile. I sat next to her and was ready to get laid into, but she was very nice. She wanted to know if Vixen's fever was like the others. She wanted me to help her feel better about all this. I didn't want to say that Vixen could die, so I didn't. I did tell her that the other cats had high fevers that broke within 24 hours-which was true. She was scared to take Vix back home since she still had the high fever and I told her she could call me any time, day or night and that I would help with the cat. It's the least I can do. No adopter should have the first days with their new cat be mired in fear and have to cough up a HUGE Vet bill on top of that, but she was graceful about it and understanding. It was a big kindness to me after such a bad day.

Just as I pulled into my driveway, our Director call to see how I was doing. I got choked up, but didn't cry. She was really kind to me about all that's going on. She has been there-and lost many kittens over the years. We had a good talk and we decided we need to shut this down for now. Instead of moving ahead to get Cupid and her kittens spayed or neutered, we are going to cancel all Vet appointments for the next two weeks. That will give them time to fight off this URI. If they are symptom free, we will go back to getting them vetted, then put them up for adoption. We fear any stress will be bad for them. I can't even move Mama and the babies out of here to get away from Rudy and Comet when they arrive on Thursday. The move could make them sick.

So I'm stuck. I've got more foster cats than I bargained for and they'll be here for far longer than I hoped. I may lose the adopters I have lined up, but so be it. I honestly don't mind having the kittens here, but I'm fearful of what's to come. Will Rudy and Comet be the tipping point to send a wave of illness through my own cats? Will they survive it? Will the kittens get seriously ill? Will they live through this?

Then there's Christmas. I didn't send out a card—first time in a gillion years. I didn't wrap a gift-I hardly even bought any. I only got Sam two little presents and I feel awful about it, even though he tells me not to worry!!! I have the house decorated, at least, but the place is a mess. I'm trying to just take a deep breath, but I so want to have a good Christmas, for once, but at this point, I'd be thrilled with a Christmas where my cats don't get sick and a New Year that brings new homes to my fosters.

Will I do this again? Will I rescue more cats?

What do you think?

Yesterday I had a good chat with Karen, the ACO at Jasper about the kittens. They just had their Vet visit and got their Health Certificates for travel. Thing is-they CAN'T go anywhere just now!

Turns up, some of them have coccidia, which if you don't already know, is VERY contagious to cats, dogs, people! Oops. It would be one thing if they had it here and we could contain it, but it's just not safe to transport them if they have it.

Karen was surprised at finding the cats have parasites because they didn't really show anything more than some soft stool and kittens have all sorts of funky stool and some times it doesn't mean anything is wrong.

The kittens will go back into quarantine for 10 days to get their Albon twice a day. ALL the animals at Jasper Co. are going to be treated, as a matter of fact, to make sure it doesn't become a nasty problem. What a pain in the butt!

Karen, a former Vet Tech, sighed and said how she wished she could get a microscope and some slides. She knows how to read the stool samples to see coccidia. If she could have caught this sooner, this wouldn't have been a big problem. It also would save her $10/animal for testing and that money could stay in her budget to make the shelter even better.

I told Karen to let me know what she needs. We'll do a fundraiser for them if the county can't afford to help her out. If we have someone willing to do the work, we KNOW it will pay off and then some. Karen was shy about asking me for anything. I don't think she understands how many people care and want to help, but just don't know how.

I think Karen may be surprised to find out!

If any of you have access to a great microscope that needs a good home, let me know. I'm going to wait until I hear more from Karen about what she wants, but heck, doesn't hurt to ask to "re-home" medical equipment if someone is not going to be using it any longer!

Sorry. There's no link or Petfinder ad for this plea!

So, my foster kitten Ollie has a condition I call "Leaky Butt." His vet visits showed that his testicles haven't yet dropped (for a moment I wondered if he was a hermaphrodite and made a mental note to look up local sociology professors, preferably ones with an academic interest in gender, but I digress). Because his little boy bits are still in his body, they're messing up the landscape for the organs that are supposed to be there. The result: anal gland issues and an irritated bum that doesn't always clue him in when he has to poop. The leaks aren't every day, and I help keep him clean and treat him with Animax, but there is the occasional surprise poo appearance.

Last night was one such occasion. Ollie got on my bed and smelled like he'd just used the litterbox. I was only half conscious and didn't think any more of it. And then my alarm went off. I opened by eyes and saw an Ollie-sized skid mark on the pillow next to mine. Ew. I sat up to find another skid mark on the blanket. Gag. I went into the bathroom to find a skid mark on my shoulder and a Rudolph-esque poo dot on my nose. Getitoffgetitoffgetitoff!!!!! Apparently Ollie had to try out a couple of areas on my slumbering body before he decided to settle down.

After taking the kind of shower the government gives to people who are exposed to nuclear matter and doing a big ol' load of laundry, I can't help but laugh. The poor kid can't help it, and once he's neutered in 2 weeks, he shouldn't ever have the issue again.

I just can't get mad about it. Could you?

Malibu, Nova and Felixia are back at ANC HQ waiting to find their forever homes. Fe is doing much better now that she's had a good course of antibiotics and is beginning to put on some weight. Nova, we hope, will be adopted soon. Malibu has continued to come out of his shell and is a very loving kitty. He's getting rather big and we're a bit worried we won't find him a home soon. Seems the younger kittens go first. Isn't that often the case?

As for my own cats, poor Gracie STILL battles miliary dermatitis. Her flare ups are still bad, still constant. She's still getting bi monthly shots and occasional baths (but I should give her more). It's been almost a year since this started and I have little hope we will ever find a cure for her. It's very sad. I fear my last options are either to put her on steroids, which I've avoided at all cost, or try to re-home her, which would make me feel like a failure. She may be unhappy with all the other cats here, but she was fine for years, then suddenly broke out. My thought is that it can't be the other cats bothering her, then...but...then what is causing her allergic reactions?

Bob has been doing fairly well, though I'm starting to worry about him He's not eating as well as he did...is it his sense of smell starting to go? He's vomited a small amount of water the past two mornings. I fear pancreatitis flare ups with him!

Nicky still has problems being constipated and he seems a bit down. We've been giving him stool softeners, but not enough. Gotta ramp up on that. I think this cat has a funny metabolism. First he would get urinary blockages up from his food and that meant lots of ER trips. He's not blocked any more, but now his colon is getting packed up. I can't figure out what is the culprit. The other cats don't suffer with this problem-even Nicky's own sister.

All the other buggers are doing fine. Some times I forget they're all getting older. How is it that Nick and Nora are 9 now? Spencer is about 7 and no one knows how old Bob is, but it's easily over 10. Where did the time go?

The foster kittens and Cali, the mama are doing better this morning. Everyone ate their breakfast and started to play right away. No litter pan accidents, thank goodness and their overall condition seems much improved.

No names picked out for the kittens yet. Will work on that today. Thanks for all the suggestions!