Since I no longer had to keep my door close, to make sure a sick Cabbages didn’t take off somewhere, I actually got a lot more sleep. I didn’t have cats constantly clawing at the bottom of my door, to get in or out!
This morning, I was awakened by this cuddle pile.
They actually started out on the other side of my head, where there was just a few inches of space, clambered over me and settled in to this aggressive grooming session.
Which I can’t complain about. We had to keep Turmeric in my room with me for about a week, because she kept turning into a snarling beast at the other cats for some reason. Particularly when a tuxedo came by. Beep Beep would also go after other cats, but she would stop as quickly as she started, and just always does that. It took days for Turmeric to calm down, and now she’s back to grooming and snuggling with cats she had been snarling and growling at. !!
I could feel another cat at my legs, so I used my phone to find out which one it was.
Only to discover it was two cats! I wasn’t twisted around enough to see Tissue. :-D Which is funny, because the cat I felt was not the cat I could see!
Tissue really, really loves jamming herself against the back of my legs, or my lower back.
The cats are all very happy my door is open again. They missed having access to my bed. :-D
I just got off the phone with the lady that took Cabbages. The early news is good!
The initial bloodwork has been done, and she does NOT have feline aids or leukemia.
Honestly, we didn’t think she did, but it’s good to confirm.
The vet checked for a few other things, such as symptoms of FIP; Feline Infectious Peritonitis. I’d never heard of it before, but she said it was a coronavirus, which is something I did know is a large and common class of viruses. The vet wanted to know if she had been outside recently (she hasn’t been outdoors since we brought her in as a kitten), or if she had symptoms like diarrhea (no), blood in stools (no) and vomiting (no) – even if we had a dog in the household (no).
She is so very tiny, but the vet did think she was just a small cat, so we talked a bit out how she didn’t have a lot of weight to lose in the first place, so once she got sick and started losing weight, she quickly became skin and bones.
So far, they hydrated her and have her a 14 day slow release antibiotic. They even put some high fructose stuff on her gums, just to put some calories in her. Then she went home with the woman we are working with, where she will stay for the next while. They will be feeding her a high calorie version of food goo, and trying to get her to eat some salmon. Cabbages is not a happy kitty right now, though, not just from getting so many injections, but with having so many people handling her. She has never been that keen on humans. The poor thing must be pretty stressed out right now!
On Tuesday, she will be back at the vet for a follow up, and will continue to stay with this family until she is healthy. There is already a foster set up to take her; an older woman who fosters cats for longer periods, to work on socializing them. I told her that Cabbages doesn’t like to be held or cuddled, though she does get along fine with other cats! I think that, without so many other cats around, she will start taking to people at least a bit more. Then, she will move on to her forever home.
I can’t say I’m happy about her having to go through two other homes before finally being adopted out. She’s not going to be a happy kitty for a while. However, at the same time, I’m happy that she’ll be getting the vet care this organization provides.
Well. It’s done.
As for the other adoptable cats, she is hoping to have them picked up, little by little, and placed with fosters by the end of April. Which means that we will not be getting the indoor adoptable cats fixed, ourselves. The adoptable cats will be going to fosters, and all their care and feeding is provided by this organization. Which means, for the indoor cats, we only have to get Beep Beep done, because the males are already done.
As for the outdoor cats, aside from Butterscotch and Nosencrantz, then the boys we can catch, that will wait until things are warmer, and it’s safe to trap them.
For now, I’m just thankful to have an update on how Cabbages is doing. :-)
As I write this, Cabbages should still be on the road to the city.
Last night, we tried her on some of the cat milk we picked up. She wouldn’t do it while I was close by, but once I stepped away, she did drink from the little bowl. Which was adorable, with her snout completely hidden, but no chance of a photo!
We also fed her food goo, thinned with the cat milk, using the syringe. She definitely liked it better than thinned with plain water.
So did Turmeric. While the girls were feeding Cabbages, Turmeric tried to eat the food goo right out of her mouth!!
Once she had a full belly, she got to enjoy some cuddles and grooming.
I think Beep Beep is going to miss Cabbages!
Here she is, getting some post-breakfast cuddles from “grandma”. :-)
I got texts this morning from the woman that is helping us with the cats. She was going from town to town, so we arranged to be her last stop before returning to the city, to reduce the amount of time Cabbages would be in a vehicle. She had a kennel for Cabbages, and was also picking up six (!!!) other cats along the way.
Then I got a text saying they had an unexpected extra cat, and were using the kennel intended for Cabbages. She was wondering if we had one they could borrow, though she might be able to borrow one from the vet clinic. We have three carriers in total, but won’t need all three until they start taking more cats in, so we’re okay with lending one of them. We’ll still have enough to bring Butterscotch and Nutmeg in to get fixed, at the end of the month, and can get it back then. Plus, it meant not having to transfer Cabbages from one carrier to another, while in a parking lot! I’m good with that.
I had an awesome surprise when I headed out early to meet them with Cabbages, and an even bigger one when I got back, but I’ll share about those in my next post.
I left early with Cabbages, because I expected to have snow issues. I didn’t, but I didn’t mind being early. They got to the place we arranged to meet early, too. We got two big bags of donated dry cat food and a case of wet cat food they couldn’t use (the wet cat food had no labels on the cans!).
She let us know that Cabbages would first be tested for Feline Leukemia – she made an appointment for her at the vet this afternoon, and it’s a quick test, so she will be able to let us know by this evening. If she does test positive for that, all the cats will need to be tested. !!!
She was happy to hear that Cabbages has been doing better and starting to eat and drink on her own. She hasn’t been throwing up anymore, and there has been no blood in her stools, which are other positive signs. Hopefully, the blood tests they will be doing will answer some questions.
So there we are. One cat, already gone. She is hoping, over the next few weeks, to be able to take 3 cats at a time. Including Cabbages, we have a total of 8 cats to be adopted out, so that should work out to 3 trips.
The house is going to feel pretty empty with “just” eight cats left in the house!
The main thing is that Cabbages is now going to get the vet care she needs, and that makes us happy.
Last night, I actually saw Cabbages eating some kibble! It was just a few pieces, but this is the first time I’ve seen her eating in days.
I’m pretty sure she would have eaten earlier, but when I saw her by the food and water bowls, I topped them up, and every other cat in the room came running. I made sure there was some kibble right in front of her, but any Turmeric kept trying to groom her, and she finally left. :-D
We’re still feeding her food goo with the syringe, of course. Which is why she’s looking so dishevelled in the above photo. :-D I had just finished feeding her, and she was most displeased with me!
She still looks like crap, does not seem to be regaining weight yet (still not enough calories getting into her. :-( ), but she is drinking more often, is more active, and has even been trying to get out of my office/bedroom. If we didn’t have to worry about her hiding in some crevice where we can’t find her or reach her, we wouldn’t be keeping her in.
We’re also still steaming her when we shower, if there’s even the slightest hint of wheezing when she breathes. She seems to like it. The fact that the house is so dry and chilly, and she’s so skinny, she’s probably quite enjoying her saunas.
We like it when we have happy, steamed Cabbages. ;-)
A bit of an update on how Cabbages is doing this morning.
I don’t know that I can say that she’s getting better, but I can say that she’s not getting worse.
We had some issues with feeding her the food goo last night. Not issues with her, really. Since we’re using a syringe, I’ve been basically making baby food for her, from canned cat food. Since we’re doing such tiny amounts, I’ve been using a mortar and pestle to make it into as smooth a past as I can. Still, the syringe would get blocked while trying to fill it. Then the tip of the plunger would come off, and I’d have to find something thin enough to go through the tip, so I could push it back and get it out.
Well, it turns out the problem was not with the food. It was the syringe. The rubber? laytex? tip of the plunger was simply getting stuck from too much friction. I used a bit of vegetable oil, and it worked beautifully.
This morning, I was even able to feed her a syringe and a half of food goo, without a second person holding her. She’s never liked being held, and once she started to get some strength back, she started fighting the girls off more, leaving them quite scratched up. Today, however, I let her just stay on the warming mat she was enjoying, and feed her. She didn’t like it, but it went so much easier with the lubricated syringe, I was done in no time, even with refilling the syringe.
As much as she doesn’t like the feedings, she’s not throwing up or anything, even after I fed her extra. I’ll still be making the food supper mushy, and watering it down, both to make it easier to get into the syringe, and for extra hydration. We need to pick up more syringes, though. They’re awfully handy things to have around. This one was actually my daughter’s, that she originally used for some of her ink pens. It was really handy to add water to the test tubes when we were doing soil tests. Yes, it gets properly cleaned. But we really ought to have more on hand.
Anyhow. I think I’ll go make some more food goo, to be ready for her next feeding. :-)
After a brief and sunny respite, it looks like the storm has finally hit us for real. Temperatures have dropped to -21C/-6F, with a wind chill of -35C/-31F – and this time, we don’t look at all sheltered from it, from what I’m seeing on the live feed of the garage cam! It’s supposed to end overnight, and then tomorrow, we’re supposed to reach a high of -24C/-13F with a wind chill of -36C/-33F. It’s supposed to be about the same for one more day, before warming up to -8C/18F!
Which means we’re going to be digging ourselves out for a couple of very cold days.
Meanwhile, we are warm and safe indoors, and I thought it was a good time for a Cabbages update.
Beep Beep keeps coming over to groom her, then Turmeric comes over and tries to force her way in between them! Jealous of the attention her adopted sister is getting, it seems. :-D
Cabbages is slowly getting better. I see her drinking water on her own more often, so we’re not as concerned about using the syringe to get her hydrated. She has little interest in eating, though. It looks like she can’t smell food right now! Her breathing is fine, so she’s not stuffed up. She’s also more active, and fights us off more when we try to feed her. She stomach seems stable enough that we’re using the syringe to feed her a little more often, and we’ll keep increasing the feedings as much as we are able.
I get to do the feeding part while my daughters have been taking turns, holding her. Both of them have bloody scratches to show for it! She may be almost skin and bones right now, but she’s still remarkably strong.
She still spends most of the day sitting like a little bony loaf in different spots in my office/bedroom all day. As I write this, she is back on the warming mat. :-) The main thing, though, is that she is improving!
With Cabbages losing the weight that she has, she’s been feeling colder to the touch (she’s not shivering or anything like that), so I set out the heated mat for her.
This is not Cabbages. This is a very pushy Turmeric, taking up the entire mat!!
Sometimes we’ll find Cabbages, Turmeric and Beep Beep, all smooshed together on the mat.
Cabbages still isn’t eating or drinking much on her own, so we’re continuing to use the syringe to keep her hydrated. We’re being more cautious about the quantity of solid food we’re making her eat, as we don’t want her to throw it up or something. Though she isn’t looking any better (too soon for that), she has definitely perked up. She struggles to get out of my daughter’s arms a bit as we use the syringe – Cabbages has never enjoyed being held much, so this is actually a good sign. This morning, when I opened the door to let various cats in and out, she actually left the room! She has shown no interest in leaving the room since we brought her in.
Turmeric is still snarling at the tuxedos, though when Layendecker and “grandma” came in, she left them alone. She’s been growling at Fenrir, though. We still have no idea why she turned into a snarling beast, and she does seem to have calmed down – as long as she’s in my office/bedroom. I’m hoping to try letting her out again today, but only if there are several of us around, just in case she switches to beast mode again.
Cabbages, meanwhile, settled herself in that Styrofoam “bowl” that was from the inside of the new washing machine. We kept it because the cats love it so much. We decided to bring her back into my office. We didn’t want to take a chance of her going under the couch or somewhere like that, and not being able to find her later. Keith did that when we were giving him his antibiotics every day, and we ended up having to have 2 of us lift the couch while a third snagged him and dragged him out!
Keith is doing very well, by the way. Completely back to full health. He gave us quite a scare!
I figured it was a good idea to write a separate post on how Cabbages is doing.
We have been giving her water with a syringe, as dehydration is the biggest danger for her. By the second time we were doing it, she seemed to get what we were doing, and was quite cooperative. We were careful to give her just a little at a time, and she actually seemed to perk up.
She wouldn’t eat the wet cat food. The girls are planning to boil some salmon for her, which will be made into a paste so we can use the syringe to feed her, but for now, getting water into her is the priority.
She seemed a bit stuffed up, so we got her into a steamy bathroom for a while. She got a couple more hydration sessions while in there, too. That done, she was returned to the comfort and warmth of my bed.
I came in to find Beep Beep and Turmeric, grooming her. A little too enthusiastically! I had to move them off of her, every now and then.
Turmeric seemed to decide she needed to be the center of her mom’s attention, though, and kept trying to insert herself between Beep Beep and Cabbages. Meanwhile, Cabbages just lay there, taking it all. Turmeric finally got to be too much for her, though, so she got up and moved to the other end of the bed.
I just took a bit of a break from writing this. My daughter came in, and we hydrated Cabbages again. We got two syringe fulls into her. She is definitely more responsive, and even opened her mouth more for the water.
We don’t want to over do it, of course. The last thing we want is for her to start throwing up again. So far, though, her stomach seems stable.
The poor thing looks so miserable. She hasn’t lost a lot of weight, but she didn’t have a lot of weight to lose in the first place, so she feels all bony now.
I got some more texts from the woman that will be fixing our cats. She let me know that all the photos I sent have been passed on to “all the girls”. I had let her know about Cabbages, and they have been made aware of that, too.
Then I got a text telling me that they have all sorts of wet and dry cat food that’s just sitting there. It needs to be used, so she will pass it on to us. !!! We should be able to meet up, the next time she is in town.
That is so awesome! I knew the organization provided free cat food to their fosters, but I didn’t expect them to have so much extra, they would need to get rid of it, and could offer it to us. I have no idea how much it will be, but every little bit will make things easier on our budget! The cats will be very happy. :-)
Today had warmed up quite a bit. It’s past 9pm and we’re still at only -9C/16F, but it’s been blowing snow all evening. Not a lot of snow is actually falling, but enough is being blown around that I’m glad we didn’t need to go anywhere. I’ve heard the roads are got pretty bad. According to the hourly forecast, we’re supposed to warm up to -2C/28F by 3 am, and stay that warm until 6am! If the driveway isn’t drifted over too badly, I might make a trip into town and get some kitten milk for Cabbages for both nutrition and hydration. We’ll see how Cabbages is doing by tomorrow, though. Poor little thing. She really does seem to have perked up. I am encouraged.
Before I had a chance to head out to feed the outside critters, I got a series of texts from the woman who will be fixing our cats. She was able to book the surgery for January 31st – for both Butterscotch and Nosencrantz!
We will have to isolate them in the sun room the day before, and take out all food and water by 9pm. After surgery, we’ll have to keep them in there during recovery. If they end up needing cones, it’s an extra cost, but I think we still have cones from previous cat treatments that will fit. Though I doubt Butterscotch in particular could handle wearing one!
Meanwhile, she has passed on the information I was able to send her yesterday, and the process of getting cats adopted out has started.
While feeding the outside cats this morning, I only counted 16, but I saw Rosencrantz this time (right in front of the kibble house) and I even saw Ghost Baby, both of whom I haven’t seen in a while. They are doing very well out there.
Inside… well, it’s a different story. We have some weird stuff going on.
From the top down is Beep Beep, Turmeric, Tissue and “grandma”. This was a massive grooming and cuddle session, and both Tissue and Turmeric were acting like they were trying to nurse on “grandma”. Which is funny, because Beep Beep is Turmeric’s mom, and when she was ready to wean her kittens, she was quite abrupt about it.
This picture of feline domestic bliss ended abruptly that evening.
The cats sometimes get testy with each other. That’s to be expected. What happened this time was a full blown fight, with rolling balls of fighting cats, flinging across the dining room floor, into the entry way, and into the basement, before breaking off and cats flew in all directions. By the time we got there, we couldn’t tell who started what.
We got things calmed down, but every now and then, there would be another tussle. As soon as there’s any growling, all the other cats come running to see what’s going on, and the ones that were in fighting mode would just tackle whichever cat happened to be nearby.
Beep Beep is a bad one for that, but she’s been fighting for survival since longer than we’ve been here, so that’s to be expected.
No cats were injured, by the way. Just to reassure!
What wasn’t expected was Turmeric’s response.
She turned into a snarling, screaming, growling beast.
Even when there were no other cats around! One time I heard her start screaming and snarling, I came running, only to find her under the dining table – alone. I did eventually spot another cat in the room, but she was behind a shelf, out of sight, and not bothering Turmeric at all.
We ended up having to isolate her in my office until she calmed down, but when we let her out, she was soon in another fight, then hid under a basement step, needing much persuasion to get her out.
So for the past few days, we’ve had her in my office. Every now and then, we’d let her out, and she’d start snarling. Usually at the tuxedos, for some reason. We would bring other cats in, and mostly she would be fine. This morning, I even let Layendecker in, whom she had been growling at before, and there was no problem. But as soon as we let her out of the room, she’s snarling again.
Who knew such a big noise could come out of such a small cat!
I don’t know what’s going on with her.
But I’m less worried about her than I am about Cabbages.
Cabbages is one of the cats that Turmeric is getting along with just fine, so we brought her in for company. That and she was really missing my bed.
Something is wrong with her.
She’s completely quiet. She’s hardly eating or drinking. For a while, she was throwing up several times a day – a couple of days ago, I had to wash my bedding three times because of that, but she hasn’t thrown up since. She moves from soft spot to soft spot, and that’s it. We’ve kept the hard sided carrier in here, with a soft towel inside, and I’ll often find her in there. Other times, I’ll find her sitting at the water bowl, just… sitting. I’ve seen her using the litter, at least. She has shown no interest in even leaving the room, unlike the other cats, who have been wanting to come in and out. As I write this, she has just come over to the food and water bowls, but is just… sitting. Not eating or drinking.
I mentioned it this morning to the lady that will be fixing our cats, and the first thing she asked if if Cabbages was sneezing or had diarrhea. It was a no on both. She recommended giving her some cooked fish for the nutrition boost, but without getting blood work done, there’s no way to know what’s going on. And the earliest we can afford to bring her in to be checked is at the end of the month. I’m concerned about dehydration and, being a small cat to begin with, the weight loss is an issue, too.
We are quite concerned.
I am considering engaging the help of a daughter or two, and trying to give her water through a syringe.
