Sunday, July 22nd 2007
On this day I went over to my mom's early to take care of the kittens. I noticed one of the kittens (male) was acing really weird. He kept opening and closing his mouth, like he couldn't breathe. I picked him up and held him in my hand, and indeed his breathing was REALLY labored. His whole body contracted when it was trying to breathe in and expanded when it opened its mouth. I could also hear it making little sneezes and what little breathing it could do sounded congested. When I tried to feed it, it wouldn't…basically couldn't…swallow the food. I was worried about the little guy, but I thought it would pass.
I went home late that night and was going to go over early the next morning. But I was so worried about the kitten that I called my mom to see if it had stopped breathing weird. She said it hadn't. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't let it suffer like that. After a lot of thought, I decided to go back over there and take it to the (VERY expensive) emergency vet around 11pm. The vet took him into the back to look him over. She came out and told us that his temperature was so low that it wasn't even registering. She said she really didn't think there was anything they could do for him. She said if they did try, it would cost A LOT, and even then, she didn't know if he'd make it. He'd have to be in an incubator with IV fluids and stuff like that. After a lot more thinking, we decided it was best to let the vet euthanize him. Even though I barely knew him, it was so hard. I felt like I somehow failed and didn't do something that would have made him okay. But then he was four days old, and we'd only had him for two days. The vet gave me the option of watching him get euthanized but I declined. She let us have a little time with before taking him away. I told him I was sorry that I couldn't make him better.
When my mom and I got back to her house, I was nervous about the other kittens because they were all sneezing, just like the one we had just taken to the ER vet. They weren't having labored breathing, but I could hear congestion and stuffiness in their noses. I decided to go home and hope for the best. I was supposed to be there 24 hours a day so I could feed them every two hours, but there really wasn't any place for me to stay at my parents' house and my mom didn't feel like she could do it herself. Looking back, I wish I would have just stayed those first few nights. I stayed as long as I could from morning until night and called often, but I just wanted to sleep in my own bed.
Tuesday, July 24th 2007
I woke up Tuesday morning and went over to my mom's house to spend the day taking care of the kittens. When I got there, one of the kittens was lying away from the others. Three were cuddled up near Allie's stomach, but one was behind her. I felt bad for it…I thought maybe it had been pushed out by the other kittens and Allie didn't realize she had neglected it. I picked it up to place it back with Allie and its siblings, but it didn't move and it was cold. It had died between the time I left and the time I came back. I felt so bad. I felt like I should have stayed over and fed them like I was supposed to…maybe those few extra hours of formula would have helped. I decided to bury it in my parents' backyard and immediately made plans to take Allie and the other 3 remaining kittens to the vet.
By this time it didn't look like they were even trying to suckle. I put their noses up to Allie's nipples, and they'd just go limp after I let go. Once we got them to the vet, they were fed with a tube down their throat because they pretty much hadn't eaten a thing. My hand feeding was not going well at all…I think more ended up on me and the kittens then in their mouths and down to their stomachs. After feeding them, the vet gave them some IV electrolytes and antibiotics. The vet said it was REALLY important to have someone feed them every two hours and give them their eye medicine, so I decided that I needed to stay overnight at my parents' house until they got better. I bought an air bed and set that up with a sleeping bag on top of it in the room with Allie and her kittens. On the vet's advice, we also got a humidifier. She also said to keep the kittens warm, so we put a heating pad under several blankets.
The room was like a sauna! It was the end of July, my dad doesn't like to use the air conditioner very much, and there was a humidifier going. Of course I had to keep the door closed. And then Allie…oh my goodness. She decided that she wanted to be with me in the sleeping bag. She proceeded to bring all three of her kittens over to me. I was too afraid that I would roll over and squish them, so I picked them up and put them back in their box, and led Allie back in with them. But she was very persistent and kept bringing them to me throughout the night. So not only did I have to wake up every two hours to feed them, I also had Allie waking me up by bringing her kittens over to sleep with me.
Wednesday, July 25th 2007
I woke up Wednesday morning after really not sleeping at all the night before. It was so frustrating , because the kittens were pretty much refusing to take any of the supplement from the syringe or trying to suckle from Allie's nipples. During the day I went out of the bedroom for a bit between feedings and checked up on them every half hour or so. When it was time for their next feeding, I noticed that one of the kittens was acting like the first one that died…opening its mouth really big and having a hard time breathing. I started to worry…this couldn't be good. I sat there and watched it and then walked away to put down their feeding syringe and bowl of formula. A few minutes later I looked back in on them and the kitten had stopped breathing that way. It actually looked like it stopped breathing altogether. I touched it and found I was right…it was no longer alive. We buried it in the backyard next to the first kitten.
Thursday, July 26th 2007
I stayed over for a second night to take care of Allie and the two remaining kittens. Things started to look grim for one of the last two kittens. She started acting as the other two kittens had, but then seemed to get even worse. Not only did she have the labored breathing, but every time she opened her mouth really big to breathe out, she made kind of a squeaky noise. I predicted it wouldn't be much longer for her. I called Jeff while he was at work and told him what was going on. I was watching the kitten and she started taking small, fast breaths, and then she stopped and was gone. I was still on the phone with Jeff. It was so sad to actually WATCH one of them die. So another baby to bury. By this time I felt like I MUST be doing something wrong, but I was doing everything I was told to do.
Friday, July 27th 2007
Even though there was only one kitten left, I decided to stay a third night and keep on trying to get this little one well. She seemed to be the liveliest and most feisty of the group and I thought there just might be a chance for her. She was starting to kind of stand up on all fours instead of lying on her side (the other kittens were so lifeless the whole time), and she was feisty when I tried to feed her. She moved around a lot, and even in the box she tried to walk…it was cute. Allie first kept trying to bring her to me throughout the night but then decided she wanted to keep her in a corner of the bedroom, by the bathroom door. Initially I let her lie there with the kitten, but I felt that it wasn't warm enough for her, so I put them back in the box. She was very cold, and in a warm room like that, she shouldn't have been that cold. But then she started acting like her four siblings did, and I knew it was very unlikely that she was going to make it through the rest of the day. She wasn't even eating anymore. When I tried to get her to pee, nothing came out. I was also constantly taking her putting her back into the warm box because Allie kept taking her out. I took her over to the box and then set her down on the floor for a few seconds to fix the blanket. Then I picked her up so I could put her in the box. She moved around a bit, and then stopped moving. She'd often fall asleep right in my hand when I was trying to feed her and I would think she was gone, but I'd touch her and she'd wake up. So I put her down and picked up one of her little arms and it just flopped back down. This time I was wrong. She died right there in my hand.
My mom and I took the last kitten outside and buried her with her siblings. We now had four little graves in a row in my parents' backyard. While I was very sad that they did not survive, I was relieved in a way, because they were no longer suffering. They weren't even alive long enough for me to really get to "know" them enough to give them names, but I still felt like I had a little bond with them. I kept trying to reassure myself that I did the best that I could, but I still cry about it and wonder if I should have been more proactive from the beginning.
So yeah, that was quite a week…finding Allie and her kittens, getting them all set up in the back bedroom, taking them to the vet numerous times, staying over at my parents' house, sleeping on the floor for three nights, waking up every two hours to hand-feed the kittens (as well as throughout the day), and watching one die each day…the first one being euthanized, the second dying before I got to it, the third one dying while I had my back turned, I actually watched the fourth one take its last breaths, and the fifth one died in my hand.
Going through all of that made me want to get into veterinary medicine SO MUCH…something I had thought of doing when I was younger but thought I could never handle. I couldn't believe all that I was able to do. Even if it didn't turn out the way we'd hoped. I've always LOVED animals and this experience solidified that. However, I don't think that's in the cards for me, at least right now. With a psychology degree, no job, and not a lot of money, I can't exactly go back to school. But I am going to ALWAYS do my best to make sure any sick animals that I may ever encounter get the best care that I can give them.
Allie made it just fine. We had to wait almost another week before we could take her to the vet to get spayed, and then she had to stay in the bedroom for about another week before she could go back outside. She was NOT happy with having to stay in that room all by herself, but she didn't seem to be missing her kittens. I wonder if she knew or if she had forgotten about them. She now roams my parents' backyard along with her daughter Spitty, who we couldn't adopt out because she was WAY too mean. She really settled down though and is now very loving.
Overall, I think this was a very good learning experience for me. As sad as it was, it taught me even more about how much I can really do. Throughout the last few years of my life, I've been tested a lot. I think it's life's way of trying to get me to grow up, because I'm still suffering a horrible case of Peter Pan Syndrome. Even with all that I've been through, I don't yet think I'm cured. Hopefully it won't take more tragic events to finally make me feel like an adult.
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