It’s been a busy week. I got home late Tuesday night from the American Association of Feline Practitioners conference in Austin, TX and headed right to work Wednesday morning. (Michael was nice enough to usurp my blog and entertain you with some geeky tech stuff while I was away). The rest of the week was filled with work and meetings and Saturday night, after work I brought home the saddest kitten to continue nursing care over the weekend.

Sunday at Murrayhill, there are no technicians or doctors at the hospital to give the intensive care this kitten needs. This kitten was adopted from the Oregon Humane Society and had an upper respiratory infection – not uncommon in shelter kittens. His new dad took great care of him, medicating him and nursing him and through rechecks we could see that the kitten was getting better but not quite 100%. On Wednesday, he was so much worse. He had lost weight, was dehydrated and very weak – but still purred whenever you just looked at him. His new dad, a college student, was overwhelmed with the estimate for intensive medical care so we gave the kitten some treatments and sent him home overnight with the plan to return the kitten to the shelter for continued care. Thursday morning I got a call that the shelter couldn’t take him and had him brought to the hospital to relinquish him to my care.

This is not something I usually do but the circumstances were so unique and the kitten was so sweet and really deserved a chance. We hospitalized him, sent out laboratory tests, gave him medication, placed him on iv fluids, nebulized him multiple times a day and force fed him – he hadn’t eaten much in 5 days. He looked terrible and we were pretty worried about his chances for making it. Friday was also touch and go and Saturday he started to look better. He even ate a few bites on his own!

Foxx doesn't think the nebulizer is very amusing

So Saturday night I lugged home medical supplies and a large carrier with the skinniest kitten inside. You see, Michael is really allergic to cats so we don’t have one – I was the only one that could take a contagious kitten home.  Michael (he may be allergic but he’s really helpful) was nice enough to tech for me as I administered SQ fluids. I nebulized him, gave him his medication, force fed him and let him sit on my lap while I worked at the computer. We also let him get some exercise and DeeDee, our poodle, gave him her undivided attention – she was actually obscessed – following him around, nosing at him, and nipping at his ears. He really seemed to like her though and would follow her in the rare moments that food was more important than the kitten.

This morning he’s looking worse. He’s weak but he’s laying on my lap purring. I worry that he won’t make it but he had a good weekend and we’ll keep trying at the hospital. I promised, if he makes it, he’d be our clinic cat. So we’re rooting for him, he’d be the perfect greeter and I know he would take his job seriously of making everyone happy.