It was good news!  Dot, the last of Flash’s kittens had an appointment at the SPCA for a potential adopter.  It was at 1::00 on a beautiful comfortable Saturday in September holding the promise of Fall.  We arrived early and the anxious adopter was already there waiting.  As soon as Dot walked out of the carrier I could see from the prospective adopter’s reaction that he would not be returning with me.  She already had a black kitten with a white tuff on it’s throat and was looking for a white same age companion for it.  Dot fit the bill even though he had some black spots.  I said my sad farewell to him and was promised that we’d stay in touch so I could watch his progress as he grew.

I am still in touch with the adopters of Flash’s four other kittens and am often sent pictures and updates on them.  Perhaps on their birthday we might have a Sibling Reunion!  Now, all that remained was Flash herself.  Even though she is still a young cat at three years of age, people are inevitably always looking for kittens and tweens.  It will probably be a long while before she is adopted, even though she is a sweet and loving feline. 

After I said goodbye, I went to the back to check out the cats they had.  I had spoken with Megan, the Adoption Coordinator, about bringing another one home if Dot were adopted.  There was a mother cat, ironically also named Megan, who had two kittens.  They were all three in sick bay but the week before I had mentioned I was interested in fostering them when they were cleared.  It so happened that the mother and one kitten were ready to go that day.  The other kitten was quite ill and had to remain. They had already been weaned.

When Megan came to the back she said I could take the two so I put them in my carrier.  As I waited for her to get the food and some standard meds to give them I wandered into another room that had four kittens in two cages.  They looked like siblings and seemed lost.

When she returned I asked about them.  She told me they had been brought in a couple of days prior by a good Samaritan who had run across their mother who had been mangled and killed by a dog.  He picked up the four kittens who were still in the  nursing stage and brought them home to try to feed them as they seemed to be starving.  He didn’t succeed so rushed them to the SPCA.

They were immediately accepted.  There were no nursing mothers in the foster program at that time so they started them on wet food to see if they would take to it.  They did.  However, the staff and volunteers were so busy they were unable to keep a constant watch on them to see if they were all eating.

That’s when I came along.  Megan was desperate to find them a foster because of their unstable situation.  So I asked her which ones needed more to be placed – Megan and her kitten or the four orphans?  She didn’t hesitate and said the four siblings.

So I put Megan  and her kitten back in their respective cages and put the four motherless kittens in my carrier.  When I got home, my husband Roland was surprised at the new boarders.  He was happy Dot had gone to a good home and was just as happy to have the four new additions.

I put up the pet playpen in my study and set it up with towels, water, toys and litterbox. Then I went and got some wet food for them.  Three of them ate ravishingly but the fourth one just took a quick nibble.  I introduced them to Flash hoping she would accept them now that Dot was gone and she was alone.  Well she took one sniff and started hissing and even soundly swatted one of them.  I put them back into the playpen.  I guess she had had it with motherhood and was looking forward to an empty nest.

I didn’t have much time to spend with them as we were having company over for dinner.  It was past 10:00 when the company left and I was able to get back to them.  I fed them once more and three were ravenous. You’d never know I had fed them a couple of hours before. The fourth kitten barely nibbled at his food and I started to worry about him.  His eyes were tearing and it seemed as if he had an infection in them.  I had noticed this before I brought them home so Megan gave me some eye drops to put in them.  Another kitten also had an infected eye which I treated at the same time.

When I went to bed the three were playing around and the smaller one was laying down watching them.  I looked in on them the next morning and they all looked back at me as I poked my head in the door.  We were running almost late and rushed to Church.

On our return I immediately went to check on them and was shocked to see the little one lying prone!  I thought he was dead.  I lifted him up and his little eyes looked at me.  He was very cold and starting to stiffen up.  I couldn’t believe it.  It was a terrible déjá vu of Super One all over again!

 I grabbed some towels and wrapped him up, then got out the heating pad.  It was old and hardly warming up enough.  I asked Roland to heat up the hot water bottle as high as he could in the microwave.  He quickly brought it back.  I put the long  electric pad on top of it, then put the wrapped kitten on top of the pad and finally wrapped the remainder of the heating pad over him.  He was totally encased and his body temperature started to raise.  I filled a syringe with goat’s milk and started to feed him.  I then asked Roland to rush down to the pet store and pick up a can of ready made kitten formula.

He called me from the store and said they didn’t have it.  I told him that was impossible, they had to have it.  Apparently he was asking for the wrong thing and they didn’t know what he was talking about.  I told him it’s kitten formula!  When he repeated it to the clerk they knew exactly what and where it was.  Once there at the shelf where they were he said they had a powdered one.  I said no, the liquid one and hurry!

He finally got back and I started feeding it to the kitten.  By then I had named him “Chance” as this was his last chance to live.  He was refusing it but I was able to get some into him, drop by drop.  I kept at it until the first syringe was empty.  I would turn him over because the hot water bottle was very hot and only heated one side of him. 

I had sent an SOS text to the SPCA and Melissa, the Vet Tech called me right back.  She asked what I was doing and when I told her she said I was taking the right steps.  She mentioned that if I wanted to bring him back she would meet me at the SPCA, being Sunday no one was there.  She would put him in the incubator.  He would be left alone and I thought it would be better if someone was able to hold and pet him so I decided to keep on trying.

So the hours passed as I continued the routine.  I would gently pet his tiny head and talk to him in soothing tones. I used a toothbrush to softly brush his fur, emulating his mother’s tongue.  He would take naps, but I never left him.  I cried and prayed, then cried  and prayed some more…

In the late afternoon, he seemed better and would even mew to me when I talked to him. When he started shoving the syringe away with his little paws I began having hope.

The hot water bottle was cooling and the heating pad was all but useless and I was wishing we had an incubator.  Then it hit me like a bolt of lightning, in a way we did have one!

My own three cats are on a raw diet.  I keep their food frozen and the night before I take out the packets for the next day and let them defrost overnight in the fridge.  I feed them room temperature food so to achieve this I run the microwave for two minutes.   When it stops I put the cold packets inside the microwave and before long they are are warmed up without being cooked and the meat is completely raw.  I’ve been doing this for years.

I could apply this same method to help out Chance and eliminate the awkward hot water bottle situation.  I heated the microwave for 3 minutes. When it stopped I lined it with a towel and then placed the bundled kitten inside and within a minute his little body was totally warmed up.  I wish I had thought of this sooner.  The temperature held for about 20 minutes.

We have two microwaves so I kept alternating him between the two, feeding him formula in the intervals.  By evening he was standing up, mewing to me and refusing the syringe as he apparently was full.  I still kept him in the warm environment.

I was more than hopeful at this point that he would make it.  I stayed with him until 3:00 AM and then decided to put him back with his siblings after a last feeding. They were clustered together sleeping and I snuggled him in the middle of them. He seemed stabilized enough, his body temp appeared normal and I figured his three siblings would lay with him to keep him warm.

Since Roland goes to bed early and gets up early I asked him to check on Chance to see how he was doing and to get me up if things didn’t look right.

I put him in the pet playpen and went to bed.  At 5:00 AM I woke up and briefly checked into the room.  As I turned on the light four pairs of eyes were alertly staring at me.  I went back to bed.

I was getting ready to get up at around 10:00 in the morning when Roland came into the room with the almost lifeless body of Chance draped over his hand. I flew out of the bed and took the kitten against my chest!  He was cold! I grabbed a towel, wrapped him up and rushed to heat up the microwave.  He had reverted to the state of the day before.  Apparently my husband had forgotten to check the kittens when he got up at 7:00 and didn’t do so until just before I got up.

I was back in panic mode! I put Chance in the heated Microwave and then warmed a syringe full of formula. I opened the door and tried to feed him.  He wouldn’t open his mouth.  I slowly forced it in but he couldn’t even swallow the drops.  I massaged his throat to help and eventually a few drops made it down.  He couldn’t even struggle.  His body had warmed up and he was back to a normal temp, but it wasn’t enough.  He was giving up.  He couldn’t eat, the formula just dribbled out of his mouth.  I kept wiping it up and talking slowly to him the whole time.  I pet his little head telling him he was loved.  My tears kept falling, I felt so helpless. Finally, sometime after 11:00 am he looked right at me and gave a out a loud mew! His little head drooped to the side. He opened his mouth and his eyes started to glazed over.  His breathing stopped!  I picked him up and held him close, crying non-stop. Chance had crossed the Rainbow Bridge. 

I took the toothbrush I had been using the day before to brush his fur and brushed him all through. I wanted him to look his best.  I found a pretty little elongated box with a green checkered print.  I lined it with tissue paper and placed him in it, then put the box in a plastic bag.

After I had sort of composed myself I got a shovel and with tears running unbidden down my face took him down to the Bird Sanctuary where I buried him next to Flash’s new born kitten who had not made it.  They both are resting where the green ferns grow.

I now wonder that perhaps I should not have gone to bed and stayed up with him through the night.   Would it have made the difference between life and death?  Even though I prayed hard and tried hard, God must have had other plans for little Chance –  and who was I to contradict Him? 

~  Marilu Shellie