This is Torts as a three week old
Happy Mother’s Day to all of you ladies who have raised families. Motherhood is the toughest job you’ll ever love. (Thank you to the Peace Corps for providing such a stealable slogan.) I just spoke with my own Mom and congratulated her on raising three kids who not only get along, but never moved back home and stayed out of prison. Yea Mom and Dad! Great work!
Now I don’t have kids, at least not the two legged variety. My babies have usually have four legs, but sometimes we have math issues that leave them with only three. And most of the time they only stay with me for a couple of months. I hand raise orphan kittens, and care for cats recovering from traumatic injuries.
This three of a kind and a pair is certainly a winning hand. Little Torts is the dark on kitten on the left.
Most of my babies come from any number of Animal Alcatraz facilities. Most are scheduled for euthanasia.
So far in 2012, I’ve taken in a five-week old orange tabby (back leg) amputee, and seven bottle babies. I still have five four-week olds. Last night, my Mother’s Day promised to be a less than joyful day. The tortoiseshell kitten, Torts, was fine one moment, then suddenly started doing what I call the frog –walk, a spastic gait that appears to either be from a stroke or rear leg paralysis. Lethargy quickly followed. The kitten had plunged into a downward spiral. It wasn’t looking good for little Torts.
I’d seen this before, many years ago. Diagnosing a stroke, the junior vet at the clinic I used at the time, pulled the blue juice out of the cabinet to euthanize my three-week old foster kitten, Pip. Fortunately, the clinic owner stopped her. Instead of giving that kitten the notorious Texas lethal injection, Dr. Ed Aycock gave Pip glucose and wormed him. Three hours later Pip reverted to his happy little self. Five weeks later, he went to his forever home.
Last night, when Torts started began her frog walk, my hubby put her in a homemade kitty-sized oxygen chamber. Despite the praziquantel label, which recommends worming kittens old than six weeks, I wormed the baby, gave her corn syrup, plumped her up with some subcutaneous fluids and kept her warm. After that it was up to God and Torts.
The night went from bad to worse. The kitten’s condition continued to deteriorate. Several times, Torts appeared to stop breathing, but the stethoscope assured me she had a strong heartbeat. Then, at 04:30 as I gave the chamber a final reluctant glace before I trudged off to bed, I found Torts sitting up staring at the corner of the box. When I squealed with delight, she looked at me as if to say, “How’d I get here?”
I pulled her out of the air chamber and held her close. Torts entire body trembled with the loudest, most vibrant purr I’ve ever heard. She immediately told me she was hungry. Still not interested in solid food or even kitten gruel, I warmed up some kitten formula (Thanks Hartz!) She drank the whole bottle. This Mother’s Day afternoon, she was ravenously downing her kitten gruel.
Today, I’m so tired, I feel like I’m moving under water. My legs have so many scratches from kittens using them as climbing posts, my extremities look like a road map. But as I look around the room, I see five tiny kittens snuggled next to various bewildered resident cats, who never signed up to be babysitters. Torts slept solo on the coveted hammock bed. As I write this she woke up, stretched and then drifted off again to whatever adventure her slumber permits her.
Despite the sleepless nights, the interrupted work, the frequent trips to the vet, I love fostering kittens. It truly is the toughest job I’ll ever love. Today, I look at a tiny kitten who, not only knocked at Death’s door, but had all but the white tip of her tail inside, and I smile. If I was playing puss poker, I’d be holding three of a kind and a pair of ladies. For me, that translates to a winning hand and a happy, however exhausted Mother’s Day.
