I miss blogging so much. With all that has gone on here, in the past two years, I find I’m at a crossroads at this time. For the first time in ages, I have a manageable amount of rescues here. I am not running all over God’s Country and trapping cats rushing them to the vet to get them help. I find that although I do miss that part of my life, I am relieved right now that I am taking a breather. Currently, we have a dozen cats. When people do contact me about a stray problem, I do everything I can to point them in the right direction to find the help they need. Only under dire circumstances will I step in and rescue.

A lot of my decisions now have a lot to do with losing Mike. Running a rescue without that strong support. Those broad shoulders and arms that would wrap around me and erase the horrors I just witnessed at the last rescue are sorely missed. The stand up guy- who would give up his own time and sleep to pitch in and bottle feed and care for the babies while I went to catch a much-needed nap… Gone…The ears that carried all my woes and heartaches when a kitty would go to the Bridge. The Love that would comfort me along the way all of it is missed.

Compounding all of these changes is that freak accident I suffered two years ago, when Kota slammed into the back of my knees and I flew up in the air, landing with both my legs under my back! The medical consensus at the time was he totally wracked my meniscus, stretching out the tendons and muscles of my knee. This was after seven x-rays were taken of the damage. They wanted to do an MRI but I wasn’t insured, so nothing was done except a round of pain pills and piece of paper that I carried home with exercises to do (that I could not perform).

It took me months to be able to walk again without shaking in pain. I used holistic means, my own version of the exercises that I could do. My right foot had over time developed a mind of its own. It would no longer walk straight. It “drifted” off to one side- so I learned that in order to walk without pain- just to let it drift off to the right. What I didn’t plan on and recently discovered that this unnatural angle has made my bones in my foot shift to this unnatural gait. In order to correct this- they would have to rebreak my foot, shave off the excess bones that have grown. They would then reset the foot with pins and screws. I would be in the hospital a very long time, and in a nursing home for even longer receiving “therapy.” Let’s face it, I am 65 years old. I do not heal as well as I did in the past. Plus once they cut on a foot- bad things can happen. I witnessed this with caring for Mike and seeing all the harm the doctors did on him in an attempt to “make things better.” Ultimately, this “help” ended up costing him his life.

Could something bad happen if I don’t have this surgery? Maybe, but I know something worse will happen if I do. That’s the state of the medicine at least here in this area. So I am going to be retraining my foot to walk the right way. If the bones can shift once, they can shift again.  I am refusing all pain medication offered and instead I am using CBD oil and a wonderful salve I found on Etsy called Joint’s Joy..I was skeptical when I ordered it- but I put in on at night before bed and in the morning, all the painful inflammation that gathers at my right ankle was gone! The redness had vanished and instead of battling chronic pain now. The pain is intermittent. It feels like someone is shooting hot fireworks into my foot- so it is nerve pain. It really flares up if I drive somewhere. Doesn’t matter how far or short the drive is, and the end of it, I am gimping around and in great pain. For awhile the quarantine was a real blessing for me, because I couldn’t go anywhere!

Friday, I went to pick up cat food (that was not there!) This has been happening so much, that I have been buying my own bags of dry food- Fancy Feast for the kitties. They seem to only like that brand these days. I can’t buy the canned, so I don’t. The majority of the money is still going to the vet. We now owe him $732.00 which is quite a chunk still. Anything off the payments I have been making goes to the FF purchases. But just driving to Albany after finally not being in pain for a few days, set me right back to the beginning. One of my local contributors has graciously offered to make the trip for me throughout June. Kathleen, I am so grateful! Thank you again. You keep telling me it is no big deal, but it really is (Kathleen found my blog a bit ago and now we are good friends). She lives closer to Albany than I do.

So I am dealing with all of this and then I get a notice that the law is changing here in Oregon for non-profits. Apparently now, you can only have ten animals period. You have to have full paperwork on all the animals. If they came from out-of-state you have to have  paperwork signed off by both parties relinquishing the ownership. You have to have entry papers and exit papers and the list goes on. Any infraction after the inspection they launch will result in a $600 fine per infraction! I will be honest with you. When I started CATS it was my mission to take only the cats in dire need. No owner surrenders, no cute, fluffy healthy cats or kittens. We were going to help the throw-aways. The ones everybody said couldn’t be helped. That’s why our vet bill is always so sky-high and that is why my vet now repeatedly asks me: “Mary Anne can’t you bring me something easier?” LOL  The answer to that is no. I currently have a new stray that I can’t even get close to yet. Listening to him breathe in the still of the night, he has pneumonia. He will not go under a drop trap, into a trap, into a carrier- nothing. One step toward this royal blackness and he splits. He is pencil thin. He is a Senior. He is neutered. I have tried peppering his food with antibiotics (didn’t work) He’s not eating much and is rail skinny because he can’t smell.

Despite the $700 bill, I am determined to win his trust, get him to the vet and get him help. I am hampered because my days of squatting down next to a scared cat, or sitting on the ground is over. Even sitting on a chair, the height is still too much for him to trust me. If we are bigger than they are, we are perceived as a threat. So I am working several hours a day with just letting him get used to me being among his new friends, my other rescues.

In the hope that he might just go into an enclosure, I recently cleaned one out  and set it up so the cats can come and go at will. If he gets in there, only two escape doors exist. I might be able to close those entrances off and have him confined so I can really concentrate on working with him. That’s my hope, along with whittling down this vet bill so it doesn’t add to the stress I am under currently. Here are some photos of the new revised enclosure:

So that is why I am not blogging much anymore. I do miss it, I do hope all of you still reading my words are safe, away from the madness that seems to be gripping the world right now. Stay healthy, stay safe and pray that I can make great strides, not only in walking in the future, but if catching His Royal Blackness before it is too late.

God Bless You ALL!