Kat, I'm so sorry for the loss of your sweet friend Lancelot. I hope you
find comfort in remembering the good times you shared.
On Dec 29, 2014 1:45 AM, Marsha mar...@lynxe.com wrote:
Kat, my heart goes out to you and your family in your loss of little
Lancelot.
Marsha
On 12/28/2014 4:16 PM, Kat Parker wrote:
*Once upon a time, almost 4 years ago, I was fostering for a group,
which incidentally had major problems later, called Guardian Angels. I was
also indie fostering myself, for cats from Downey high kill shelter in LA.
I had recently pulled a mama with 3 babies that had raging URI, newborn
kittens with pneumonia, and sadly lost two, though through the magic of the
nebulizer, one kitten, Kiwi, and Mama Goldie were saved. Mama was
despondent for her babies gone, and Guardian Angels brought me two babies,
different litters. One, Angelina Jolie, was one day old. The other, who
we named Mimi, was one week old. The woman who brought them to me said I
should put them with Goldie to see if she would accept them I did. Now, I
am a very experienced bottle feeder, and I could have bottle fed them both,
and I did supplementally bottle feed them, but Goldie was so happy, and
cared for the babies all so well, and it was quite a sight those three all
nursing. I will NEVER AGAIN place untested babies on an unrelated nursing
mom, again. Never. As you can guess, one of the babies was FeLV+,
unbeknownst to us. About a month later, I took a cat who was about 8 weeks
old from Downey, who came with the name, Precious (we called her Isis, or
just the buzzsaw),and that same week, GA brought me the saddest bunch of
siblings I had ever seem, pulled by our San Diego firefighters out of a
well, during a rainstorm. From what I understand, somebody, apparently,
had been walking in the rain, and heard some little frantic mews from
somewhere nearby. Investigating, they found a covered well, with water
rising to the top,and kittens inside. The fire dept responded and freed
the kittens, turning them over to GA, and then to me. These babies had
muck everywhere, and fleas on parts of their bodies you couldn't even see,
just overrun. I have pictures its amazing. But, these were some of the
friendliest most endearing kittens I've ever had here, and it wasn't long
before the two black sisters were adopted out, through GA. Then, the little
Mimi kitten got really sick and tested positive for FeLV, finally
euthanized at 8 weeks old. I tested all of the cats, then, and none who
came into contact with her were positive. I didn't know much about the
disease then. Boy, I do now. Well the orange boy, Stinky Lancelot, and
Angelina Jolie as well as Isis were going to Rescue House, a terrific local
rescue org here, and they have wonderful protocol there, and tested all
three kittens. Sadly, this time, two were positive, Isis neg. Isis was
kept iso'd at their vet for an entire month to retest and be sure. Stinky
and Angelina came home, and didn't get into RH, although they did pay for
retest in them, at 60 days, just to be sure they didn't turn negative, as
so many do. Isis stayed negative, as did Mama Goldie, and Angelina Jolie,
my little miracle baby, who later got FIP and died in my arms at a vet, at
8 months old and Stinky Lancelot stayed positive. Stinky went to live with
my mom, who had no other animals then, after her 21 yr old rescued Peekaboo
kitty passed, and was a perfect fit. What a ham, what a life! My son also
lived there during this time, and the two became best friends. Two weeks
ago, Stinky went to my vet as he was not feeling well, and had like little
pools of blood inside the bottom of both his eyes. Bloodwork was done,
and it was found that he had raging leukemia cancer, severe anemia, with
his white cell count, especially leukocytes, right through the roof. As
this progressed, quickly, I wanted to take him in to gently help him pass,
but my son was having such a hard time letting go, I wasn't able to.
Finally, about 1 am dec 26th, David was pounding on my front door, ringing
the bell like crazy, and woke me. He said, Stinky is doing bad, he's in
lots of pain and gramma can't find the pain meds, help him! So I drove
there and got him through the night, and next morning we got in to see my
vet early for euthanization. But when they tried to put a catheter in, dr
could find no veins at all. We had waited too long. Stinky was completely
blind with thick cataracts, and one eye was totally filled with blood, om
the inside. He was in bad shape, and I was glad we finally were going to
release him from the suffering. But because my Doctor could not find a
vein, they could only sedate him while we were there,and had to wait till
we left in order to finish the euthanization, which I have a strong
suspicion was by heartstick, as there really was no other way due to him
being so emaciated and so far gone. My son wanted to hold him,
