Tuesday morning we took Puff for her vet visit and she was very very sick. She could barely breath, wasn’t moving and hadn’t eaten and taken any water in two days. The vet said she was very dehydrated and might not live or make it through birth and that there was a good chance she could have cancer or aids (the feline kind, they can’t give it to people) and she should be tested. He also said she should be on antibiotics. Unfortunately we had four bucks in the banks because we used the last sixty we had to rescue her and the car trouble from last month hurt our pocket book big time. He did give us some homeopathic remedies we could try but he didn’t look very enthusiastic about her outcome.

When we got home we were pretty bummed but decided to give it a try. We managed to scrape together ten bucks and buy a bottle of saline nose drops and a bottle of lysine pills (an amino acid sold in health food stores). While Sean was at work I looked up feline leukemia (what our previous kittens died from) and feline aids to see what our options were. The vet said we should have them all put to sleep if they tested positive for either but I don’t believe in giving up that easily. I found some good websites and a few places that cater to the adoption of special needs kitties. We talked about it and decided if the kitties are sick then we’ll do what we can to find them a home before restorting to euthenasia.

When Sean got home we went to check on Puff and discovered that the walls were bleeding. My first instinct was to pack my crap and run. When it comes to hauntings I am a major chicken. Then I decided it might be wise to at least see why they were bleeding. No I’m not nuts, there are photos at the end of the post. Anyway, it turns out the hot steam from the humidifier had somehow reacted with the cheap ass paint they use here and something (oil, varish, dirt?) was oozing out of the paint and down the walls. We gave Puff a bath (she peed herself because she was so weak) and then took her litter box to the patio, emptied it, cleaned it with vinegar and water and filled it with clean litter. Then we removed everything and scrubbed floor to ceiling with vinegar water and put down new puppy pads. Finally we cleaned her food and water dishes and gave her new food and water and Sean held her while I wiped her eyes with saline and put saline drops in her nose. We tried to get her to eat on her own but finally we had to force feed her with a saringe the food and lysine mix.

After two days of that she was much much better and yesterday afternoon she started eating and drinking like she’d never had a meal in her life. We started to regain some hope that she and the babies might be ok. Later that night before we went to bed I felt her stomache and it was firm and round and I couldn’t feel the kittens. Before it was soft and squishy and I could feel each kitten move so I was getting nervous. This morning I checked on her and repeating the same routine we do four times of day of wiping her eyes and giving her nose drops but since she was eating and drinking I only stayed a few minutes to pet on her and then went to clean up the house. At eleven went to get her lunch ready and repeat her cleaning but decided not to go since she was eating and drinking and since she looked so good. But around eleven twenty I got this nagging urge to check on her. When I entered the room I could hear a little mewling sound and rushed in to find Puff in labor.

She’d climbed into her birthing box and one baby was out but still attached to the afterbirth that she hadn’t pushed out and a second baby was half out. I helped her move the babies so she could reach the after birth and gently guided the second baby out and opened it’s birthing sack so it could breath. Puff wasn’t crying or giving any indication she was in pain and she was a real trooper, purring, cleaning the babies and snuggling around them. Shortly after she had two more babies pretty quickly and forty five minutes later she had the last baby. Her belly was still a little firm but I didn’t feel any movement so I moved the babies to a heating pad, removed the soiled puppy pads and put in a soft plastic lined mat and then a new puppy pad. I got them all situated and comfortable and left her alone to rest. When she was sleeping I brought Niobe and Trinity in to see the kittens (Niobe was only interested in Puffs food and Trinity was offended and stomped off).

At three I suddenly felt that I should check on her again and Neo followed me into the bathroom. The puppy pad was soiled so I counted and, you guessed it, six babies. I felt Puff’s tummy and I’m fairly sure that was the last one. All the kitties are doing well and thier mommy is doing a good job so I’m a happy fur-grandma. There are three black kittens (one solid and two with some tortie thrown in) and three red kittens. Not a one looks like thier mommy. Below you will find photos cause I know you’re dying to see them Pray all the kitties are healthy and happy. As for me, I’m covered in afterbirth and blood so I’m going to take a shower. More pictures will follow. Good luck and blessings, Prana

Walls

Kittens

P.S. A special thanks to Amy, nurse/vet/saint for all her advice on kitty care. You’re the best!

If you recall, in last weeks episode we left off with Puff crying in the garage and Sean on his way home to take her to the shelter. Our story continues…

Sean came home for lunch to pick up Puff who was still screaming like a banshee and covered in pee and dropped her off at the shelter. For a week I was worried sick about her especially after Sean called with some grim news. I sent him to the shelter six days after he’d dropped her off to check on Puff as we had grown somewhat attached to her these past two months. We wanted to make sure she was being taken care of, see if she had given birth and if someone was going to adopt her. Sean later called me from work to say that the manager told him that Puff was scheduled to have her kittens aborted and be put to sleep the next day. I was hysterical. Hysterical is to mild. I was crazy with grief. I seriously almost vomitted and then started hyperventillating until I thought I would pass out. I was so upset Sean left work again to check on me.

I know that might sound a little extreme but Sean and I are big time animal lovers and animal rights activists and we’re a little traumatized from past experiences. I’ve had a pet since I could walk and every time I got a new pet it either died, went missing or was taken away for various bizzare reasons. When Sean and I got engaged my mom gave us a kitten and we later took in two stray kittens we found outside. We already had a big male cats we had adopted from the shelter and the place we were living in was literally a wet cardboard box. So all the cats came and went as they pleased and in time all three kittens grew up and got pregnant. They gave birth on the same night and we literally had fifteen kittens and four adult cats to look after. We were poor as dirt and more than a little ignorant and though we did all we could we lost all the kittens. They all had feline lukemia (the fleas from thier mothers bled them dry) and we stayed up all night for days feeding them with droppers and keeping them warm. We even used the money we’d saved for our wedding and took them to the vet but they said there was nothing that could be done. We also had a wiener dog named Oscar who we couldn’t take with us to Texas so we found him a good home. But the three cats were left behind to fend for themselves as the shelter told us if we brought them in they would put them to sleep. Since then Sean and I have gone out of our way to make sure our animals are healthy and happy.

When I calmed down enough to breath normally I called the shelter and begged, pleaded and promised until the manager finally agreed to let me adopt Puff and the kittens if I sold her my soul. They still intended to abort her kittens unless she was close to birth which thankfully she was but we had to come get her the following day or they would put her to sleep. So we scrounged up the sixty one bucks and went down to the shelter the next day and adopted her. I won’t lie, I’m not thrilled to have another cat. The ones I have are a handful and I really don’t want to pack more animals with us when we inevitably move next year. But I just couldn’t bear the thought of this sweet kitty and her babies being put to death for no good reason. So, we’ll make due and hopefully things will work out.

Puff came home with a cold so she’s quarentined in the bathroom (it’s a big room and we made sure she’s very comfortable) until after she sees the vet Tuesday and she has her babies which could be any minute now. I’m excited for her but also nervous. I remember helping my cats to birth and how scary it was to watch, how gross it was to assist and how sad it was to bury fifteen tiny bodies under the elm tree. I just hope that Puff gets better and has an easy delivery. I know in time she’ll be another cherished member of the fur family and we’ll wonder, as we always do, how we ever lived without her.

As soon as the babies are born I’ll post pictures. In the meantime pray it all turns out well. Good luck and blessings, Prana

As the temperature rises and my hair looks more and more like a brillo pad the magic of Mayberry begins to wane. It’s not so much that I mind looking like a psychotic clown as the extreme danger of my head catching fire whenever I try to comb my hair. Aside from the heat and the static, the only good side of which is watching the cats attach themselves to the ceiling every time they’re pet, is the bugs. Last night as I was making dinner I noticed Niobe crunching away on something by the fireplace and making the most awful face. Thinking she’d found another fly or perhaps an ant I went to make sure she was ok only to discover she was covered in slobbery spider bits. Checking the fireplace I find that a second black widow spider is curled up in its web where it blends in nicely with the black metal frame. After the high pitched girlish screams stopped I reassured Sean that all men scream like that and then convinced him to kill the spider. After several wild flings he managed to mash its guts so thoroughly into the wall that nothing short of a sandblaster will remove it.

I’m a little bummed this morning. My porch kitties haven’t been coming around much lately and when they do they eat so voraciously that at this rate we?ll all be eating cat food soon. I can only assume they?ve had their kittens, probably in some filthy damp box or trash bin, and only come around to catch a quick bite. Last night Puff, the sweetest and friendliest of the porch kitties cried and begged even longer than she normally does to come inside and I noticed that she was looking big. I?d hoped that at least she would be spared but decided it would be better to be safe than sorry. So I lured her into a cat carrier with some lunch meat and put her in the garage over night. I would?ve brought her in but she’s an outside cat and I can’t risk her giving something to my cats. The animal shelter doesn’t open until eleven so Sean’s coming home for lunch to take her in. I feel badly that she’s all alone out there in the garage and probably feeling betrayed and I worry that she may have already had her kittens and needs to get back to them. But the thought of her out there in the heat and wind with a pack of half starved kittens just breaks my heart.

The furniture is supposed to come in this week, the living room set anyway. It’s about time because my poor ass can’t handle much more time on the floor. I got my bread maker to and let me tell you, it’s going to be the death of me. Not because it’s hard to use but because the bread is to good and that’s saying something when the bread in question is made from rice. It’s so nice to sit in my dining room at my own table and drink my tea, eat my toast and read one of the hundreds of magazines that pile up so high there?s a real risk of being crushed under a tower of smiling babies and half naked women. Not that we can sit on the new furniture when it gets here. I’ve discovered that while I love all the things I bought I can’t use them because I’m just not worthy of their greatness. My good cookware sits on the counter unused like an expensive work of art. The beautiful red velvet quilt that will look so splendid in my medieval themed room is packed away in the closet where no errant cat claw can snag its delicate gold threading. And don’t even get me started on the new towels. I went to release the cats from their nocturnal prison, ie the bathroom, only to find they had pulled down my new towels and used them as a scratching pad. They were kind enough to pull them over the giant pile of puke in what I must assume was their attempt to clean up their own mess. When I came out of my faint I spent the morning cleaning puke from locations I didn’t think cats had the agility, or thumbs, to put it in.

On the bright side, my favorite stalker from high school has found me. She’s on heavy medication and swears she doesn’t collect my hair anymore so I felt in the interest of public safety I should probably go ahead and talk to her. If you’re good you might even get to talk to her. Seems her therapist thinks she should vent her uncontrollable rage and unthinkable perversions by journaling and I’ve convinced her the best way to escape ones past is by broadcasting it to the general population via blog. I figure public ridicule is just the remedy for her low self esteem. Just do me a favor and don’t make fun of her lisp and don’t stare at the hunchback, she’s rather sensitive and the last guy who picked on her was subjected to the most inhumane tortures imaginable. And when the sex was over she made him get engaged. Poor Mickey was never the same.

Good luck and blessings, Prana