the power of awesome will heal you

the power of awesome will heal you, originally uploaded by titanium-white.

I made this for a wounded comrade back at Kanata Animal Hospital. Lets just say it was a slow saturday.... lol.

golem

The last few weeks have been short, and too full of mundane activity; the dull kind of busyness that eats up my spare time, and leaves not much of interest to talk about.

Today I woke up feeling ragged and washed out; flea bitten and scabby. My eyes are red and bleary, raw from trying to rub them into some kind of focus.

At work, I force feed the unfortunately named Nyx. She came to us days ago, barely alive, exhausted by the efforts of taking breath, unable to lift her head, little more than a husk. Beyond repair, we were certain she would die.

Tonight she has summoned enough energy to hate me. She exhausts herself fighting against the tiny mouthfulls of food i slowly poke into her. She gags and retches, barely able to breathe around swallowing.

You have to eat.

Her eyes and sinuses are gummed shut with viral slime. I clean the crust off of her eyelashes and wait for her to catch her breath. She wheezes and focuses her eyes on me.

improvement.

Slowly, she eats enough to qualify as a meal.  She turns her head defiantly as i wipe away the thick ropes of food and drool that hang from her chin.  I clean her face and paws, clean her eyes again.

In my arms i hold a tiny cat shaped golem, made of twigs and paper.
exhausted.
impossibly thin.
and yet she persists.

Rubbing her chin, i think about my two Skinny Boys being adopted, ( a thing i've been working towards for months) and am shocked by the sudden sharp slap of sadness.  I  gasp with the pang of the realization of how much i will miss them.

Fat tears squeeze out of my eyes and plop rudely on the back of Nyx's skinny neck.  I blink them back but its too late.  I think about the growing list of  faces i miss and add my Skinny Boys to it.  I  think about all the things that keep me awake at night, and all the things i am afraid of.  My cheeks burn as more tears slide down them. 

Through my sobs a tiny sound reaches me.  Far, far away, at the distant tips of my fingers the faintest of rumbles begins to grow.

Nyx's eyes are closed.

Her entire body rattles with an obscenely loud purr.

i am forgiven.

persist.

The Skinny on "Squishy"

UPDATE!

I brought the boy home again last night to give him another 24 hours to stabilize. Usually things either resolve or don't in the first 24-48 hours, so today is judgement day. The concern is that he needs to be stable enough to be cared for at home only over the long weekend, as i will not be able to take him with me when i leave, and i don't want him to deteriorate and suffer while i am away. So its a bit of a tricky business, this seeing into the future...

Last night the prognosis was guarded...he had signs of improvement in his demeanour - actually swatted and tried to bite the cloth when i was cleaning his face -, and his anisocoria (irregular pupil size - a sign of brain swellling/damage) had improved, Lung fields looked and sounded better...but on the other hand, his mouth breathing had worsened, and he would gasp heavily at times, especially after feeding.

Breathing is a pretty big deal. So. Anybody's guess.

He did okay at home, Edith managed to stuff some food into him and he got a sniff of Pain medication to make him feel better (It didn't kill him! YAY! - the dilution needed to dose him was RIDICULOUS!) And a diuretic to wick fluids away from his lungs and brain. There was not much improvement, but at least he seemed stable.

He had one very scary incident in the midle of the night. I woke up and he was curled up on himself like a crushed spider, panting furiously, unresponsive, Heart pounding. I thought for sure he was going to die, but as it turns out, the little guy has spunk. I dozed with him beside my head, trying to comfort him and see what happened and he eventuallystabilized again, although was still not breathing especially well.

This morning he got more medications, and seemed a little stonger, but was breathing worse than ever.
I was sure i would have to euthanize him today...

and then
out of the blue...

He sneezed a bunch of times and must have cleared his sinuses a bit... He stopped gasping...then stopped mouth breathing....then stopped puffing...and went to sleep, just like any other little kitten.

Since then he's been sleeping a few hours - must be Exhausted after all he's been through. He's eaten fairly well, although swallowing still causes him some respiratory distress...

But overall he looks a million times better.
Just like that.

spent the better part of the morning being snuggled and marveled over by everyone in the clinic. We're all hoping for a happy ending.

He's still not out of the woods, but its looking better and better, and i think he's tough enough to stick out the weekend. Ms. 'Berg has kindly offered to cat-sit for me - the big ol' softie! So i will load her up with syringes and doses and a miles long instruction list and we'll see how the little guy does...


Thanks to everyone for all the support and help and well wishing!

I will keep you posted as things develop and hopefully be able to get some happy kitten shots up tonight.

Peace!

A.

the refugee

I was supposed to put a needle full of poison into his heart today.

I couldn't do it.

So i stole him and brought him home with me instead.