It’s the darndest thing I have ever seen on Blossom, but she keeps getting these splits on her skin right by her tail. They look like a miniature earthquake has hit her, small bloody fissures running amuck.
My vet said she must have allergies- but I don’t think so and this morning she has an abcess there. Normally, I can open and debreed these suckers but she is just to old and to fragile.

Waiting for the vet’s to open so I can call and hopefully get an appointment this morning for her. She is eating and last night she did allow me to clean her wound area with the stuff the vet gave me- but she let me know that I had to be very gentle or I might be missing a few digits afterward!

This isn’t like Shell’s fragile skin syndrome, this is something different and probably brought on my poor nutrition and neglect. Some days, they are all healed up and no problem, but this isn’t the day for that.

It spit snow yesterday on the way to work. Snow! In April- in Oregon? Hmmm-

She calls herself a rescuer, yet the cats are kept in clutter. There are URI abounding with all the cats running around. When she first gets a cat, there is no quarantine set up. The cat is just pushed into a carrier where it has to live on top of a litter pan that rarely gets cleaned.

She calls herself a rescuer but her cats are in ill health. She keeps intact females “because they throw loud kittens”

She has an outside pen that makes me weep- the cats are exposed to the elements with only a thin sheet of plastic protecting them from the bitter wind in the winter and the extreme heat of the summer.

She calls herself a rescuer, but vet visits are few and far between. Yes, she neuters kitties, but she negates this action by keeping intact females and letting them have babies. These babies are forced to live in dirty carriers next to a litter pan and somehow, Mom needs to sandwich herself between the litter pan and the back of the carrier to care for the needs of the family.

She calls herself a rescuer but is in need of rescuing herself. Someone who started with a good heart, but got overwhelmed, couldn’t manage to say an important word “NO,” and has no idea what she is doing, or how to do it well.

The last cats I got, I received from her after she “rescued” them. There are two left, both seniors, both with challenges but at least they stand a chance to have a semblance of life with us here.

She calls herself a rescuer- shame on her-

Samson

Blossom

Manny has joined his friend Shell and together they have traversed the Bridge into a land only people can dream of. In Heaven’s grasses, Manny now joins in the hunt for flutterbugs to play with and become friends to. Leaping high over the clouds, running the skies with a magnificence only he can muster.

It seems as it is always the special ones who are called home early. Perhaps they have another mission to perform, another family to touch and their time with each individual leaves them all changed for life.

In his last breath of life Manchester was glorious- in the Heavens above he is now feline Magnificent.

Goodbye Manny- you stayed way to short of a time but long enough to enrich it. Tell Shell I said hello~

He is out of the tent this morning and wandering the room. Other than a bad URI and some sort of infection WBC count is up, he may be out of the woods now. I hope so, but only time will tell.

In order to give him his meds, I have to pound them into fine dust, mix them with a bit of water and baby food and tuck him between my legs as I kneel on the floor and convince him to open his mouth and not spit it all over me. He’s bitten me twice and clawed me a dozen times- he is NOT a compliant patient!

This morning, even with frost on the ground, the sun has snuck into his window and he is laying on his pillow in the sunspot. His appetite is still pretty nonexistent so assist-feeding is the way I am going. But when I have a cold and my nose is running like Niagra Falls, I don’t much want to eat either. My mother used to say “Starve a Cold, Feed a Fever.” I won’t starve him, because you can’t or they get sicker- but I do understand his reluctance in eating right now.

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.