Bad, Bad, Cat week...........(long)

naughtoj

naughtoj

Cathlete
Seriously, there is something wrong with me.


I think I was a cat in my past life.


I posted last week about my cat dilemmas. Remember, mine had lost her voice and seemed ill, and one of my "outside" cats I thought maybe had ear mites.

Anyway, I do feed some of these cats every now and then, but very few of them come by regularly and most have other owners. Well, this one I had not seen for a month or so. He used to hang out in my backyard everyday for a bit and then all of a sudden he wasn't around. Well, I thought one of the other cats had scared him away. Anyway....Friday night he shows up looking like something out of "The Grudge". He was emaciated, moved very slowly, had green pus coming out of his eyes AND nose :eek: and looked like he couldn't even see, was stumbling. I offered him wet food, he wouldn't even touch it. He laid down in my front yard and I thought it was to die. I think someone owned him at one time, but not now. No one cares about him and he is laying there dying.;(

Well, he was so nasty that I was even afraid to touch him, thought he may have something infectious. Plus, I did not know how he would react and he had never been the nicest of cats. I started balling and my husband came home and told me "there was nothing I could do" yada, yada, "I had been good to other cats", "You can't save them all", "he is not even ours". Anyway, I cried pretty much uncontrollably for a few hours and then my hubby said the cat was gone. I went to sleep and prayed. Well, I woke up yesterday and was supposed to be at school. I went outside and there he was, still alive, but dying. I couldn't just NOT TRY!! So...........I called school, told them I had an emergency and began my quest to help this cat, even if it meant putting him to sleep. I just COULD NOT watch him die in my backyard! I mean, what was I supposed to do!

After so much agony, I finally got him in one of my HUGE carriers ( I mean it barely fits through the door). He was puking up pus and choking. It was so horrible. I am absolutely a mess by now (it is so weird how upset I get, I hope to have 1/10th the compassion for humans in my nursing career, LOL) My sister came over and we took him to the vet.

Well, ALOT of money later, he has been hospitalized. He does not have the feling "heavy hitters" that could kill him, but we are waiting on lab work to show if he may be in renal failure or something in which case I would put him down. But........he MAY just have a severe URI which went untreated. Essentially, he was choking on his own infection and could not eat. They said that if I had not brought him in he would have died from dehydration probably that day. :-(

Anyway, hubby wasn't really happy about the large amount of money but he was also not suprised. He has never met anyone who reacts the way I do to animals, especially ones that are not mine! We agreed that I need to stop giving food to any cat I see because the emotional turmoil I go through when something happens to them is HUGE. My school understood, so that is good, but he says he could see me throwing away nursing school just to help this one cat that I don't even own. And honestly, I don't think I could have turned my head yesterday, regardless of the consequences to me! And honestly, I have spent the same amount of money that I am spending on saving this cat on many other much more foolish things, so I feel that the money is nothing compared to saving that animals life and ending his pain. In this case it meant not putting him down, but even if I had to go through all that to put him down, well, I would have done that too.....

I cried all day yesterday, initially for the cat and then after when I thought my husband hated me for what I had done. But I feel like, What was I supposed to do. For me, there was no alternative. It would have ripped me to shreds inside to know that cat was out there hurting.

So, back to work may be in order for me. I like having $$. The stress of not having $$ I think is more than working full time and going to school, LOL. So, getting the paper today and the job hunt is on.

I would literally get a job to support being able to help these animals. I would work for them. Isn't that crazy???

I swear I was a cat in my past life, LOL.


Kitty (his "name" is Tuxedo) is still at the vet, getting IV fluids. He wouldn't have survived in the Arizona heat without them. Antibiotics too. Lab results come in tomorrow, and if they are OK, he may come home with me in which case I now have to figure out how I will keep him contained for a while and care for him (to my knowlege, he is an outdoor cat). Too bad I couldn't have him fixed at the same time. I would have had he not been so sick. Maybe I can catch him once he is healthy!}( I don't know though, when he is healthy he is a figher...he bit me in January! LOL

Thanks for listening. Maybe some of you can sorta relate and not think I am such a freak. Well, now you know if one of your cats (or dog) ever gets out and comes to my house, I will care for them. HA HA I saw a little dog running down the street the other day close to a freeway and did not stop. It haunted me the rest of the day and into the night. I just kept seeing that dog in my mind. I am whacko!
 
Janice, I totally do understand your wanting to try and help this poor kitty. I also do understand where your hubby is coming from about the money. We've had SO many "adopted" cats - mostly strays who find out (I think they must have a network somewhere!) it's really cool to hang around our house because we'll take care of them! Even when I was young my mom would always try to help strays. The cat lover in our family goes WAY back. And we've nursed many sick ones back to health as well. You saved this cat's life - for however long it will be - and I hope you take comfort in knowing at least he didn't die alone and with no one to care for him. I also hope you find a way to continue with nursing school because anyone who is that compassionate to animals will make one heck of a fantastic nurse (this coming from a 19 year one here!!) :D

Carol
:)
 
Janice, You have a heart of gold, and if I were a stray cat, I'd want to have someone like you around! (I'm not a stray cat, and I STILL like having someone like you around!)

When I used to rent an apartment (half of a house), there was a stray white cat who would come around all the time. I called him "Studly" because he was the alpha cat of the neighborhood, pooped right in the middle of the yard and didn't even make a move to try to cover (saying "this is MY territory!") and probably fathered most of my whacky neighbor's cats (SHE was a whacko, feeding all these unneutered/unspayed cats and not claiming them as her own, even though they lived in her yard, and not getting them fixed. I talked her into letting me and some folks from a local animal group get them spayed and neutered, and she was so upset about the idea of them staying in cages all night if we put them out, so we didn't, and then again when we were trying to catch them--as gently as possible, but some of the kittens were rather wild. Then, after we got most of them spayed and neutered and brought her back the ones she said she wanted to keep, she went out to the shelter and demanded that the others be given back to her! Well, at least they were spayed and neutered).

Anyway (digression aside!), I hadn't seen study for a while, then one late afternoon, he comes into the yard, stubbling, skinny in a very sickly-looking way, looking yellowish rather than white. I knew something really bad was happening. I called the shelter to come and pick him up, but the a-hole working that evening, after he heard that I had fed him and was trying to get him to the point of being approachable, only heard the "I had fed him" part (and not the "he is not approachable" part) and told me he was MY cat and my responsibility! Then I finally convince him he WASN'T my cat, and he said they'd be out in the morning to pick him up. I said that he was dying now and suffering, and was also probably ill. A-hole said that if he's sick, he's been outside anyway, so the sickness has been around (yeah, maybe, but the cat was a moving object, not the barely-moving creature that could easily be attacked by other animals like raccoons, who would then spread the disease).

Fed up with "Mr. A", I then called my vet, who was on-call at the emergency number. She told me to bring him into the office and she'd meet me.

I got him in a box (by using a shovel to scoop him up: he wasn't moving much, but still swatted at me). When I got to the vet, who was about 8 months pregnant at the time, she said he looked like he had been hit by a car, and maybe also had feliine leukemia. She euthanized him without charging me anything.

When I went into the vet's office later than week, the regular main vet told me I should write a letter about the A-hole (she didn't refer to him like that ;-) ) to the town board and complain. I did, with my full "Dr." signature and in quite lucid terms.
 
I'm glad you complained, Kathryn. I hope in some way it did some good. We have a wonderful 24 hour emergency animal hospital about 20 minutes from here. When Nik's gerbil was dying a couple years ago they were kind enough to spend a long time with me on the phone, explaining about seizures the little things can have and what I could try and do for her. They also were honest enough from what I was telling them to gently tell me she would probably die anyway (she did), but it was comforting to have someone take the time to talk to me just the same. Shadow (our cat) sat by my side all day as I held Venus and tried to get her to eat. Just having someone explain to me what had happened to her was a great comfort to all of us, even though we lost her. There are vets ... and then there are GREAT ones who truly love what they do.

Carol
:)
 
We've had SO many "adopted" cats
>- mostly strays who find out (I think they must have a network
>somewhere!) it's really cool to hang around our house because
>we'll take care of them! Even when I was young my mom would
>always try to help strays.

I definitely believe there is a cat "grapevine." They tell each other where the good cat people are (or, perhaps, "suckers", LOL!).

The majority of cats I've been "mom" to (I just can't say "own" when talking about cats), except for three, in fact, have been "foundlings," either coming to my yard, or the product of a chance encounter on the streets, or "second-hand" foundlings that were found by other people who couldn't keep them (mainly because they had many cats already!).
 
>I definitely believe there is a cat "grapevine." They tell
>each other where the good cat people are (or, perhaps,
>"suckers", LOL!).
>
Kathryn, I think you're right about the "grapevine"! There's a woman with whom I work that has many "adopted" cats, which started with one very sick cat who "found" her. She took it to the vet and nursed it back to health ... and found out it was pregnant to boot! Two of the kittens survived, and now all three live with her. She said more cats just keep showing up though - LOL! She takes care of all of them outside and tries to catch them long enough to have them fixed. The more she cares for, the more show up!!

Carol
:)
 
You know, you guys, it is so much easier for most people to just turn their heads and say "not my problem". People can't understand why I can't do that. Believe me, it frustrates the hell out of my husband. He was mad at me that I did not just put the cat down, without even running a test or anything. But look now....I would have put down a cat that likely just has a URI that went untreated and got ugly. How sad is that??:eek: I know I can't keep bearing the financial expense, though. My husband is likely much more understanding than most other men, really, and he does understand where I am coming from. He was just raised in the country where you could so much easier just take the cat out into the woods and shoot it! It hurts me so much to see these animals in pain, feels like someone is just ripping my heart out, and hubby knows that and that is why he gets angry: he doesn't like seeing me hurt.

I'm like you Kathryn. SPAY AND NEUTER!!!! All the cats I have "cared for" over the years that were trappable, were trapped and fixed. It is so inexpensive compared to the expense of unwanted animals and the cost of treating diseases and injuries from cars and such. For a short time I volunteered for a trap-neuter-return organization here in Arizona. They would tip the feline's ear to let everyone else know the animals was fixed. Heck.....if it was easier to get cats into carriers, I would be pickin' up every cat I saw!! It just can be so difficult. But you know, it can be soooo frustrating when you see a sick cat suffering and there is no one to call, no one that cares, NO HELP!! I think dogs are much better off that way. Many people are more sympathetic to dogs...maybe cuz they don't run wild in the community, I don't know. It's like stray cats are the "neiusance" of society, but we let them be or even worse, totally contribute to it!

What a better world this would be if it were just required for everyone to spay and neuter their animals. I ended up not being able to volunteer for that clinic for long...got way too attached and emotionally involved. Now I just contribute monetarily annually..to buy cages, surgical instruments for spay/neuter, etc. Works better for me! :)

Thanks for the sympathy Kathryn and Carol. I knew my fellow Catheites would also have big hearts...:D
 
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