My Days Have Been Filled With...Kitten Poop

So...I didn't really talk about it much online, but our sweet cat Luna died a few weeks ago. She had what we think was a heart attack right in front of me, and died in Angeline's arms within minutes. It was horrible. I have owned so many pets in my life, and yes, many of them have met untimely deaths but I have never actually witnessed it.

It was pretty terrible and I was having a really hard time with it. Being the sweetheart that he is, Chris suggested that I get a new kitten...

I waited a week and then I finally decided that I did want a new kitten. Hell, I love kittens anyway, and we were *this* close to adopting Moo, our last foster kitten. Once I made up my mind, I told Angeline, and after she stopped squealing, we headed down to the Humane Society.

Once we got there, my heart broke a little. You know, as often as I am there picking up and dropping off foster kittens, I have never actually been in the rooms with all of their cats and kittens that are up for adoption. There were at least 50 kittens there.

AT LEAST 50 kittens, not even including all of the adult cats. And that doesn't include any that were in medical quarantine. It broke my heart that I could only bring one home with me!

We found a sweet little boy that Angeline fell in love with, and went to fill out the paperwork to take him home. Come to find out, he had just been surrendered the day before - with his litter mate - and he wasn't old enough to be neutered and adopted out yet. Since I am already a foster for the Humane Society, they asked if I would just take him for a few weeks until he was ready to be adopted out, so that they could free up his cage for a new kitten to be accepted.

And then they asked if we could foster his sister too...

I walked out knowing that I had just adopted two kittens, and I was perfectly fine with that.

Angeline called dibs on the boy, decided that she didn't like his name Justin, and renamed him Tarzan. The little girl was called Jessica, but I renamed her Jane.

Get it, Tarzan and Jane? he he

They were the sweetest kittens ever! So snuggly and sweet, and they immediately took to Angeline and I, following us around and meowing at us to pick them up. Jane was totally stalking Foxy, it was the weirdest thing. She wanted to be sitting next to her at all times, if she wasn't being held by one of us!

After the first day or so, they began having diarrhea and needless to say, that was not fun. After 2 or 3 days, I took them to my vet to have them checked out. He thought that they probably had a lingering infection from worms that they may have had before the Humane Society wormed them. He gave me kitten vitamins and some antibiotic and told me to follow up with the Humane Society at my next appointment with them.

As soon as I began giving them their medicine, they got worse. They hardly had an appetite as it was, but now they didn't want to eat AT ALL. I went out and bought the smelliest, fishiest wet kitten food I could find and microwaved it, and began mixing kitten formula into their water. Their diarrhea was so bad that as soon as they would eat, it would start running out of their behinds...

It was horrid! These poor kittens got so skinny so quickly, and they were already pretty thin when I got them. I gave them their medicine for one day, then the next day when Chris got home from Trinidad, he was helping me medicate them and realized I was over-medicating them a lot...it was no wonder that they weren't showing any signs of improvement, the symptoms of overdose were diarrhea and loss of appetite - since they already had those symptoms, they were just exacerbated! I am so grateful that it was only one day that I was doing it, or who knows how bad things would have gotten.

All the kittens did was sleep and dribble poop all over the house. I had to constantly wash their rear ends because it was hurting them so bad and making their skin raw. The amount of laundry and mopping I've been doing for the last two weeks has been insane. I experimented with a ton of different foods, milks, formulas, treats, etc and it didn't seem to be helping.

I was scared that they were going to die.

I took them back to the Humane Society for an emergency check up and they couldn't find anything actually wrong with them! They ran the tests twice because it was obvious that something was wrong...still nothing! They gave me an anti-diarrhea medicine to mix into their food and an antibiotic, and they gave them fluids and told me to come back in two days to give them more fluids.

Within a day, they seemed to be improving. The little girl began getting her appetite back.

And she began stalking Foxy again.

I took the kittens back for a check up and more fluids yesterday and they did show a little improvement. The tech said that they've gained a tiny bit of weight back already, even though I couldn't see it. She gave them more fluids and they told me to keep doing what I am doing for this upcoming week.

As of today, Baby is doing much better! No more diarrhea, her appetite is back and she hardly has any leaking at all. I can already tell that she's putting some weight back on. Tarzan is doing better but he's still having trouble getting his appetite back and is a little "leaky" still. But he is definitely improving!

It's not all bad, though...now that they are doing better, I have cute little moments like this when Baby is waiting for me on my laptop!

So...that's what I've been doing with my time the last two weeks. I also went to a wedding, which was totally kick ass, and have been swamped with blogging work, and there was a bit of a family tragedy-that-turned-out-okay...but those are definitely stories for another day!

What have you been up to this week?