I suppose it is kismet or karma or just luck that today I decided to toss out my old shower curtain in favor of another one. What also plays into what just happened is Mike has been put on oxygen 24/7 but taken off it for tonight because they are testing his stats and he is hooked up to another machine.
Adding to this, my one unit for CityPet, I hadn’t taken the outside packaging to the trash yet…so what am I talking about? I am talking about Manchester.

He began to open mouth breathe big time about an hour ago. So with Mike’s help we made a makeshift oxygen tent for him using Mike’s oxygen tank, the shower curtain liner and the packaging from CityPet. When I just dropped the tubing into the cubbyhole where Manchester was struggling to breathe, he moved away from the hissing air (and who wouldn’t?) Frantically I looked around the room and saw the packaging for city pet. Dumping the litter box air filter out of the container, I flipped it over and discovered the perfect little culvert where the tubing can be laid down through the passage and the oxygen directed near Manchester but not on him.

It is not air-tight so I am hoping we did the correct thing and this will help him through the night. Open mouth breathing is generally thought to involve the heart- yet the vet took films today and said the heart and lungs looked perfectly fine. It’s 2 a.m. and I doubt I will get any sleep over this. I just hope he has an easier time of breathing until the clinic opens in the morning.

Stray Cat
By Francis Witham

“Oh, what unhappy twist of fate
Has brought you homeless to my gate?
The gate where once another stood
To beg for shelter, warmth, and food
For from that day I ceased to be
The master of my destiny.
While he, with purr and velvet paw
Became within my house the law.
He scratched the furniture and shed
And claimed the middle of my bed.
He ruled in arrogance and pride
And broke my heart the day he died.
So if you really think, oh Cat,
I’d willingly relive all that
Because you come forlorn and thin
Well…don’t just stand there…Come on in!”

Manchester’s temperature has spiked again so I gave him some fluids and his meds. He is not happy in confinement, this male kitty who used to roam outside. His meows of protest are filling our home and the other cats are nervous, skittish, wondering why one of their own is so upset.

I hate that he is sick and no one can tell me why. He falls under that aggravating term in vet medicine called NDW- and FOUO Not Doing Well and Fever of Unknown Origin. My uneducated guess is that he had something percolating in his tissue or cells and some stress trigger happened that threw him off and he became ill. For me, that fits better then falling under the category of NDW.

They didn’t see any point in keeping him another night, and they have no one at the clinic who stays at night. I have asked before to stay with my cats when they are there, but due to insurance purposes, they tell me they can’t do that. At my old clinic, before we moved here, they had someone who stayed all the time, so I guess I am spoiled a bit.

So he is home, he is quite sick and I will be with him all night. Time to get the coffee on- it is supposed to drop to freezing tonight! In April- in Oregon? I hauled up the little heater for warmth for him as we don’t have central heat and air in this old farmhouse. I’ll do all I can to get his temp down, he just got fluids and I did an alcohol rub on his pads and ear flaps. Poor kitty, one would think he was being tortured by his yowls of protest of being put up away from the others until he is well again-

We have no definite answers as to what is wrong with him, but this temp is back to normal (although that may be just because of the injections he was given) I am to watch him closely give him his meds and call the vet the minute his temperature spikes. He is upstairs by his lonesome and wailing his discontent to the world. I keep telling him that his throat is sore and he needs to save his voice, but he isn’t listening-

Just when I hoped I was done with vets for awhile, I had to rush Manchester in because he was having problems breathing.

Manchester was rescued from someone who believes she knows what she is doing with cats and kittens, but sadly, she does not. He stopped eating two days ago which was worrisome because he is a voracious eater. His temp spiked early this morning to 103.4 and when I called to get him in I was told I could only drop him off so I did. He was open mouth breathing on the way to the vet and I thought I was going to lose him.

They have examined him, tested him (he tested negative thank the Lord) but his fever is higher 104.5 and even after fluids, antibiotic shot and a cortisone shot his fever remains high. When I shared with the vet that when Manny was on his back and getting a belly rub and he started open-mouth breathing ( I flipped him immediately upright) the vet agreed x-rays were in order. He doesn’t see anything alarming, the lungs look clear, the heart looks good but the temp is going up.

In the back of my head I am thinking a bad word that starts with an F (NOT THAT word!) It ends with a P. The vet hasn’t said it yet, but I am wondering if perhaps that is what we might be looking at.

So he is staying the night, and perhaps even longer until they get his temp down. Manny is a sweet, gray and white kitty about 3 years old, but this woman when she “rescues” she puts these cats in the same room or the same cages without taking them to the vet first or having them tested. NEVER a good idea.

Here is Manny just click the link below. I am trying to get my blog to accept regular photos, not sure why it isn’t yet- so until then- just click the link and see this handsome boy who needs prayers-

Manchester

This little orange girl arrived after being locked in a bathroom with another cat when their owners vacated the rental property.

She appears very traumatized and is outside in the large cage hiding up on the third level (good thing I am tall). Although her ears are laid flat back and her eyes are slit when I enter the cage, she will allow me to pick her up, though she stays tense and curled into a ball with her head and tail tucked.

I put her about 7 months old, and thankfully there is a small scar indicating she has been spayed. She is going to need some time before she will accept anyone into her circle of trust- all because one family decided to leave her behind.

I managed to finish my last project with the Guidance of God under the Inspiration of Shell and this was the final result for the soldier, the friend, the man whose life ended before others really wanted to let him go…(sound familiar?)

-In Memory-

R- is for Remarkable, this man; a son, a brother.
O- is for Observing, he was simply like no other.
B- is for Baffled, all the people left to face…
E- is for Eternal, Rob rests now in God’s embrace.
R- is for Remembering, this goof, this simple man.
T- is for Tackling the grief as best you can.

C- is for Cherishing the memories, tuck them in and hold them tight.
H- is for Holding special moments, his energy, his light.
A- is for the Awareness, that every time you pray-
R- is the Realization, Rob’s but a whisper away.
L- is for the Love he showed, he shared it till the end.
E- is for Extraordinary, this Soldier, Dad, Your Friend.
S- is for Sharing all the love he left behind.

C- is for the Circle of Support you now must find.
L- is for Lasting through the sorrow and the pain.
A- is for the Anticipation you will meet with him again.
R- is for the Radiance, Rob glows with Heaven’s Light.
K- is for the Knowledge, he has joined the Angels in flight-

-Mary Anne Miller-

I read the words left behind from people who are faceless to me. None of you had the privilege or honor of knowing this brave little kitty, but she somehow struck a chord in all of us to respond to her spirit. The comments left on these pages could have been typed by me, and I suspect that ALL of you have known a Shell in your lives at one time or another.

Stray cats, they don’t get much of a break. They are usually labeled as “feral” or diseased. They are ignored, abused, tormented and very rarely ever loved. For Shell, her hell existed with a woman who didn’t have the capacity to understand that cats need basic things to stay alive and healthy. Her mind was as diseased as poor Shell’s mouth became over time. They both suffered because of this neglect, the woman got evicted, her cats were taken from her and each cat in the colony (ten total) all suffer from various forms of neglect.

I have two more of her colony mates now in the bedroom. A dilute tortie girl (short-haired) who probably got hit by a car and can’t walk or jump like a normal cat- she still needs a name. I haven’t quite found one to fit her yet. She is so friendly- she will knock you over to get you to rub on her and the wounds from the collision are finally starting to heal. She needs to be loved, craves it actually- it is the energy that sustains her I believe. Understanding that human touch is good and she just can’t get enough.

Samson is a big white fella “older than the hills” according to my vet. Like Shell, he too has lost most of his teeth, but his mouth, thankfully is free of gum disease or stomatitis and the only cancer he has appears on the tips of his ears.

These cats like so many others who hide in the shadows always amaze me when they come to someone who knows that they matter. It may take a few days, weeks or even months to get them to trust you- but when that moment happens, when a Shell of a cat emerges from her cage, tail up and eyes bright to say a proper “How do you do!” Why friends, you just hit the lottery!

They teach us so much if we are willing to listen. To slow down, to decrease the demands on them to “act like other cats” to not scratch furniture, or miss the litter pans, or bite or growl or…or..or..do everything that they instinctually will do to survive. That most feel is “inappropriate behavior.”

When Shell went so many days without pooping, I knew then that she was not meant to be here long. They can go a day or two without pooping and not raise concern, but four days, either she didn’t have the energy to do her business, or she was trying to tell me “Mom, I really do like it here- but there is something not right with me. I need to go home.”

I woke up this morning and had a clowder cluster on my chest; Turner, Trump, Chappy, MK and Muddy all lying around my head neck and chest. Weighted down with these felines, I couldn’t move. I was in a cat strait jacket. I believe they were comforting me, had heard me weeping in the night and were clustered around me to say- “We are here. We are here because of you. We want for nothing, we have a roof over our heads, food on our plates, a kind vet to help us when we are sick. We are here and we thank you for caring and we know, that sometime soon another Shell will arrive here and need you and all you offer.”

They were all looking at me in the mid-morning light. Perhaps trying to understand how people can be so different to them. Some kind, some not so much. They were a comforting blanket on a bleak day in my heart.

So, I read these comments and I weep because I know that there are other Shell’s out there, not yet discovered. Living in filth and fear, trying to survive until one of us finds her and brings her to safety.

I cried myself to sleep last night, something I haven’t done in a very long time. After so many years of rescuing, you develop a- I don’t know a callousness about letting go. I think it is to protect your heart, because if you let every cat walk into your heart- you would never survive the rigors of rescue.

But Shell, she shattered that force-field and walked right into my heart early. Her scrawny body deprived of what every cat should have; food, shelter, comfort, love, vet care. A walking skeleton a cat whose presence shone over the others here under my care. And she softened me and told me her story and asked me to tell others. This was her mission, to let others know who turn a blind eye to the suffering of stray cats what can happen when someone feeds and doesn’t neuter, or feeds and doesn’t care to do anything else- or in Shell’s case, landing with someone who didn’t feed but who protests to this day that she “Cared deeply for Pattycakes!” Pattycakes, how ironic that a name so sweet would be placed on a cat who wasn’t even being given a dose of love in her day.

How many years did she hang on? How much did she suffer in the dark, in the cold, surrounded by cats who were tougher and could win whenever food did appear or could escape that prison they were confined in and at least hunt for some type of protein. But yet she hung on and she burst into my life and turned on my caring button and I never looked back.

I cried myself to sleep last night- and the amazing part of that is I don’t think I was alone.

It says in the Bible that God collects our tears in a bottle. This morning, I believe he presented many bottles to our Ms. Shell and said “Shell, these are for you, and this confirms that in the end, YOUR Life, it DID matter. It mattered a lot!”

It’s a valid question and if you aren’t here to see her on a daily basis, witness her struggles at the litter pan and watch her useless tongue sweep food off her plate, it is a question in need of an answer I suppose, maybe for closure or other deeper reasons.

But she was riddled with cancer and it was set back deep in her throat where it couldn’t be easily seen. She was alligator jaws when you went to open her mouth and so I never tried. I saw it afterward, when she was finally at peace.