Itta is a very small, 62 year old
woman living near me who feeds about 50 feral cats as well as her own.
She was laid off from her full-time
job as a librarian from the LA city libraries two years ago because of massive
budget cuts to all departments. She now works on an on-call and sometimes on
a temporary, part time basis.
She barely makes the rent and
utilities and has very little money for her own food and for her cats and the
ferals.
I give her about 80 lbs of dried
food and about 50 cans of wet food a month to help her out. Marie gets three
times that because she cares for 150 cats, and Rosa for about 100.
Recently Itta broke her left elbow
and had surgery, making it more difficult to function.
Yesterday she called me asking
whether I could help her own, older cat, Sophia, who had lost a massive amount
of weight and was not eating or drinking.
The vet said the cat had either kidney failure or hyperthyroidism, but
Itta could not afford the $180 for blood tests.
Itta asked me whether I knew of
anyone who could give Sophia subcutaneous fluids as each time she got fluids
she improved. The vet recommended fluids
twice a week, but Itta could not afford the $39 each time. I told her I could, as the IV sets and
Ringers were set up for one of my own cats with early kidney failure: Bodhi.
Itta showed up with Sophia in a
carrier. Sophia is a beautiful Calico cat, obviously once much larger, with
very young looking, light blue eyes and the clipped ear that indicated she had
once been a feral cat.
We placed Sophia in Itta’s lap and I
gave her 120 cc’s of Rinerger’s Solution with a 20 gauge needle. Sophia was completely relaxed and seemed to
enjoy the slow fluids and the attention.
Itta was incredibly thankful,
repeating over and over to “Sophia, I love you and Ed is your savior.”
I also trained Itta how to give
fluids herself in the future, but in the meantime, Sophia will be getting her
fluids at my house until I receive more IV sets in the mail.
I also gove Itta 2 cans of Science
Diet KD, which is a low protein, low Magnesium and low phosphorous diet food
for kidney failure that I had at home. I’ll buy her some more in a few
days. I also gave her several pills used
to stimulate eating for cats who are not eating.
Itta thanked me profusely and left
with Sophia.
Fifteen minutes later she
called. She said Sophia was eating like
she hadn’t eaten in a month, just breathing the food into herself. Sophia had not been eating at all, and had
even stopped drinking water. Giving
fluids often has that effect on cats, an immediate hunger and thirst.
We both rejoiced, and I felt
satisfied that I had helped her and Sophia.
Sometimes, because I have been doing
it so long, feeding ferals feels more like a job than something I do that
brings me joy, but Sophia’s dramatic short-term improvement, and giving Itta
some hope that Sophia may be around longer than she thought was very
satisfying.
PHOTOS COMING NEXT WEDNESDAY.
No comments:
Post a Comment