Not all cats are traumatized... We do sick, too!

In the course of my time in rescue, I've encountered a TON of sick cats - various types of sick.  Everything from the sniffles to various different serious and life-threatening issues.  It's always a challenge to keep cats quarantined and medicated, as anyone with a cat could attest.  I generally have no issues nursing them back to health, no matter how icky or gross the treatment or symptoms can be.   The whole family contributes to getting sick kitties better when we have them.

There are certain times when it's REALLY bad for a cat to be sick, and when they are pregnant is one of them.  I got a call from Lori who wanted me to help her out by taking a pregnant cat she had pulled from HAC.  The poor darling was very pregnant, but wasn't even listed anywhere because she was sick, and sick = dead at HAC.  Lori decided to pull the cat and ask questions later, and she took her back to her own shelter facility.  The poor girl, named Bianca, did not do well there, and was more and more stressed out.  She needed a home environment to get better and deliver.  Lori called me.  She was especially concerned because Bianca was still very ill, but was ready to give birth any day, but if she did, her kittens were at risk of getting sick with her own URI, and a respiratory infection for wee little kittens is a very, very serious thing.  They need their sense of smell to find the way to the nipple, and if they are stuffy, that's just not happening.  I had my work cut out for me.

I still had lovely Sage and her babies, at the time all thriving, so we agreed to swap.  My healthy, well family to go to another foster, in exchange for pretty sickie white preggo cat.  I could tell as soon as I saw her that Bianca was a sweet girl, who was miserable and sniffly and sneezing.  We took her home and got her settled in a quarantine room by herself.

Bianca and her little "chicken nuggets".  Squee!

The poor thing was SO skinny, a product of being too stressed to eat, in combination with living on the streets before she ended up at Animal Control.  Despite her huge round belly, her little hip bones jutted sharply out, and her face was so skinny...  It looked like she had maybe had a litter already when she was trapped...  Her nipples were swollen and the hair was moved around in the telltale "kittens have been nursing" kind of way.   No sign of kittens when they caught her though.  I can only hope they were safe.  To the matter at hand though, I had to get this girl better asap!

She immediately loved the King sized bed covered in fuzzy blankets in her quiet room.  This is good, she was getting comfortable, de-stressing and decompressing.  Within minutes though, she had a coughing fit so bad I thought she was going to explode.  OI!  The illness in her lungs had a tight grip, it was going to be a challenge to meet the deadline of getting her URI gone, getting her weight up, and all this before she delivered (and who knows when that could be, it could be any day).  I started her with Lysine added to her wet food, as well as kitten milk.  Kitten milk has lots of protein and calories, and pregnant mamas can use it just as much as kittens can.  Adding it to the food of a pregnant or nursing mother, it can help them make up for the calories they loose nursing and still sustain their own body reserves.  Nursing mothers need three times the amount of calories they would normally... How much would a sick, pregnant, malnourished mama cat need?   She pretty much spent most of her time in the food dish, and the rest of it cuddling us, and coughing.  And sneezing.  And having these near-athsma attacks that totally disturbed me. 

I also realized that she was at least partially deaf.  She's a white cat with blue eyes.   About 80% of blue-eyed, white cats, they are genetically deaf.  It has something to do with the development of their eyes and ears in the womb..  Often even a white cat with two different color eyes will be deaf on the blue-eyed side.  Hooooooo boy.. another challenge.  Deaf cats get along just great, but they can certainly be more prone to defensiveness, and a mama cat who's deaf is especially challenged.. how do they hear their babies when they cry?  Bianca was VERY sensitive to vibrations though, and I hoped there was a chance that her deafness was in part a product of her stuffiness, but we wouldn't know until she was better.  Days went by and every day she seemed to get a little better, cough and sneeze a bit less, and she started filling out.  Those jutting little hipbones were covered with a sleek layer of conditioning that looked good on her.  I just begged the powers that be for every day she was sick that today would NOT be the day she went into labor, she wasn't ready yet, the kittens COULDN'T get sick!!

Lori was also concerned because Bianca had been vaccinated at HAC.  Oftentimes pregnant cats will be vaccinated to induce abortions....   Bianca had been JUST newly pregnant at the time, and chances are they didn't even know she was pregnant, but regardless, we were very worried about the kittens because of this, as well.   Vaccination during pregnancy can cause deformities and other nastiness in the babies.  All we could do was keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best.

Adorable sleeping threesome!

About 4 am on a Sunday, I was blissfully sleeping.  Bianca had been resting on the bed with my husband and I, and I was off in lala land.  I was awoken by my husband, shaking me frantically.  He said "Don't move your feet, she's having her babies there!"  DOH!  I had a kittening box prepared, but obviously Bianca decided to go her own way...  I looked down and saw lots of blood, and some white, and moved her as quickly as possible into her kittening box.   (Doing laundry at 4 am on a sunday - please note, NOT on the list of fun things to do on the weekend!)  The first delivery went pretty quickly... And although I was helping her, I could tell something was off about the first baby, it wasn't really moving or struggling as they do when they are first born, and it looked like something was hanging......   She delivered the second baby and abandoned the first to me...   I picked the baby up and on closer inspection, I was heartbroken to see the baby was badly deformed.  It was born with it's insides on the outside (trust me, the actual visual is no better than the imagined one), and it was weak and dying quickly.  There was nothing I could do for the poor thing, so I made it as comfortable as I could and went to assist with the other babies.  It died a few minutes later.

There are no words as to how adorable they are.....

Bianca was very tired, and was struggling, probably not just from the labour, but still being weak from her illness.  She charged on though, though,  and delivered three more perfectly exquisite, extremely tiny, squirming and loud little white babies.  She was a very attentive mom.  She seemed to be making up for not hearing them by always having her eyes on them.  I couldn't have been happier that she was so loving and conscientious of them.  I was worried about her passing her cold to them by licking them, or her losing condition because she was behind the 8 ball already, but all I could do was my best.... 

Playful little stinkers!

The kittens have grown in leaps and bounds.  They are sweet little "chicken nuggets", as my older daughter calls them.   They are almost 5 weeks old now, eyes open, totally mobile, and totally endearing.  Bianca is a lovely mama, who it seems is only PARTIALLY deaf (She can hear some tones), which is GREAT... the complete deafness WAS from her congestion... Even better!  Bianca is so intensely loving and sweet (not to mention beautiful!), I don't doubt that she will find a forever home very quickly once she's ready... But for now, we get to enjoy her lovely nature, and her adorable little white kittens.  We have named them, one girl and three boys.  We wanted to have fun with their names, so we named them all something that means "White".   Nerys is the girl (White lady), Fintan is one of the boys, the end of his tail is crooked (a genetic thing), his name means "white one", and Dhaval who's name means "white fire".  Bianca means white too, so the family theme fits.  I will be posting lots more about these guys until they get adopted.  For now, it just means you get to enjoy their ADORABLE pictures and videos.   Aww, shucks!    It's nice when you don't have to really fix them sometimes, and you just get to enjoy it.  Don't get me wrong, I'd NEVER give up working with Trauma cats, but it's nice to enjoy a little normalcy, too :)