Hello all.
I just found this forum and have spent the last hour or so reading and enjoying all the advise and stories. I wanted to share with you something that recently happened in my house.
About 2 months ago, a pregnant stray adopted me and my husband. We immediately fell in love. She was very poor in size and health. If I had not started feeding her, it is my true belief, she would not have survived another week. Well, we let her into our home and our hearts. We have 6 other cats, so we have been keeping her in our basement (heated). Five weeks ago, she had a litter of 4 kittens. 3 females and 1 male. What an experience it has been. Well, they were not even a week old and I noticed that the male had what looked like a growth of some sort in his eye (their eyes had not yet opened). We took him to the vet, he had an infection, when the vet started to squeeze his eye, there was a lot of puss that came out. Well, a few minutes and $35 later, we left with a tube of ointment to put on his eye 4 times a day. A week after all of this, one of the females (the runt) had some anal tissue protruding from her little butt and yet another trip to the vet was made. Again, after a few minutes and another $35 later, we were sent home with another tube of ointment to apply 4 times a day. We were told to do this for her for about 7 to 10 days, but things should look much better in just 3 to 4 days. Well, after 5 days, the lump of tissue had grown larger and was protruding further out than before. We decided to take her back to the vet and was told she needed surgery (now keep in mind, that at this point, she was not even 3 weeks old). The vet had told me that because of her age and size, she had a 50-50 chance of coming out of the anesthesia. Well, after surgery, she woke up and was fine. She had to have a stitch to secure the anal tissue and we were instructed to bring her back in a week to have the stitch removed. Everything was going great and she was healing nicely. We had the stitch removed and she seemed fine. I thought that if she could make it throught this, she can make it through anything. I was so wrong. My husband and I grew so attached to her that we decided that we would keep her as well as her mother. She was about half the size as her brother and sisters, so we wanted to give her a fighting chance by hand feeding her some supplemental kitten formula. That seemed to be going great, she was eating like a little pig, sleeping, playing, things seemed normal. This went on for almost another week. Last Saturday night, she was sleeping on my bed and my husband said she woke up, seemed confused and started running in a circle, crying. She did this for about 15 seconds and seemed fine. The next day was awful! She seizured and stopped breathing. I had to breath for her and she finally came out of it. We made a frantic call to the emergency vet # (this was on Sunday). She told us to bring her in right away. She put Karo syrup on her gums to bring her out of it. She suspected that she was having a low blood sugar shock. We brought her home and she got progressively worse. At this point, she would just lie there, unresponsive, almost paralyzed or like she was in a coma. The only reaction she would have, was when she would start to convulse. The whole day went like this, about every 2-3 hours. Finally, through the night, it was about every half hour or so. I was to the point that I would just beg her to go to sleep and not wake up as to end her suffering. My heart was breaking for her. It seemed so unfair for a little baby to suffer as she was. First thing Monday morning, we called the vet and told them we would like to have her put to sleep. We took her right in and had it done immediately. This was a week ago today. I have been torturing myself, thinking that I made her suffer this way. I tried so hard to keep her alive. All I can think about is how selfish I was not to have her put to sleep sooner.
Anyway, I just wanted to share this with all of you. You all seem to be such good "parents" to your cats. I feel we are all kindred spirits of sorts. I am glad that I found this forum!
I am attaching a picture we took last Saturday, she was just 4 weeks old.
