July 21, 2008 - How quickly we get attached to our pets..........

We have so many stray cats around our house and 2 of them have had kittens recently. One of them had 4 in our attic right above our bathroom. (They are about 7 weeks old now.)  I heard them and had my husband get the ladder and get them down; it was over 100 degrees up there. We set up the pet carrier on our 2nd floor bedroom balcony with extra precautions so that they would be safe. The momma cat climbs up the post of the front porch and up and over the railing on the top floor. One of the kittens became really sick early so we tried to nurse it. After camping for 2 days we came back and it was worse so we tried to take it to the vet and didn't make it out of the drive, it passed. My daughter was so upset!! We are such animal lovers. Well a few weeks later another began to get pretty sick, it was late so I decided the first thing in the morning we would visit Cheryl, our vet. The next morning I woke up and went to check on it and it was no where to be found. The other 2 were walking around. I ran downstairs and here it came when I called on the front porch from under a chair. It had fallen!!! It's nose was completely stopped up as well as it's eyes so off to the vet we went, after a brief clean up of the kitten.

Cheryl gave him a steroid shot and antibiotics as well as medication for his eyes and told me to keep him in and bottle feed him. So I did. He was 9 ounces that day. So we are a week and a half later and we decide to go camping again (for a week), we take "Baby" with us and he does very well in the camper. I let him out and fed him then he ran around and played with hubby's shoes and attacked his legs. We put him in his carrier and went swimming. We came back about 1 1/2 hours later and he was in an odd position sleeping. I had everyone look and laughed, thinking he was exhausted and fell asleep in this peculiar way. I picked him up and he began to act excessively odd. I sat him down on the bed and petted him, thinking I had scared him when I woke him up. He continued to act odd. I sat him down on the floor and he took a few steps and lay on the floor and rolled his head over on the right side. He did this several times and I was off to see Cheryl again!! (In tears by the time I arrived!) He is my "Baby" now. She isn't sure what is going on but he is all of a sudden blind and apparently has swelling on the brain. WHAT!!! He was fine less than 90 minutes ago!! She gives him another steroid shot with something special for the brain function in it as well as a pain shot that she said should knock him out for 4-6 hours so that the other can take effect. We take him back to the camper and watch him very closely. Within 2 1/2 hours he is up and running, hungry and back to normal. I have NO idea of what was wrong. I just am praying that he is okay now. My hubby is calling him my $100 kitty and keeps teasing me that I am going to get upset when it is time to put him outside. Yeah, like that is going to happen!! (He is attached to the little booger as well.)

We are back at our house and I let him run around all night with our other pets. He was so quite this morning, must have had fun all night. He was asleep at 6:40 when I came down instead of crying and waking me up at 6:00, or before, for his feeding. ((Oh yeah, in the camper he would use the litter if he was in his crate or go and use the dogs pee pad if he was up and running around. I had never seen a cat use a pee pad!!))

Isn't it amazing how attached to pets that we get and so quickly. My big 12 pounder whopper of a cat (that is only 1) is lying asleep by my desk now. I have to get onto him frequently due to playing too ruff with Baby. Einstein (our dachshund) isn't interested in him since our camping trip. Hubby was holding Einstein and Baby were playing and he didn't like it so he has decided to stay in the other direction from him.

Well my son is playing in a box and Baby has decided to take a bath and go back into his carrier by himself. He is so cute. I have pictures but not downloaded. I will download and post in the next day or so. I hope everyone has a great day and God bless you all!!

Vicki