It's been a bad year for fostering.
Aside from the people involved, last Christmas evening, the foster kittens came down with Calicivirus. It's just a cat flu, they were fine in days, but Professor Fuzzywinkle caught it from them and Mei Mei caught it from him. Now they both have stomatitis and have had teeth removed and steroid shots. It becomes a gradual spiral to the cat needing all their teeth removed which may or may not cure the problem.
This last litter of fosters in April were super adorable but Momma cat had a blemish on her ear. I tried to get it treated but the organization said they don't test for ringworm, the new owners can if they want, it's not round, it's not ringworm although it looks like some sort of fungus. Hey, guess what? It was ringworm! She never broke out but it never got better. Kittens where fine until after their first showing and then all hell broke loss from the stress. Luckily for me, 3 got adopted before anything happened but the last little baby got ringworm. Bad. The org didn't want to spend the money on treatments. Gave me ear drops to use on her face--which she promptly rubbed into her eye and IT got all messed up. After 3 weeks, I took her to my vet and decided to treat her for real, I have 4 cats of my own and a rabbit to think of plus I don't want to be losing hair. Months of dips and oral meds and she was healed! And we kept her because after months, we got attached.
And that's how we have 5 cats today.
2 months ago my Calia got sick. Really sick. Suddenly, she's a renal cat. We brought her back from the brink of death and she's on an IV every other day. She's also always been an itchy cat but guess what? For weeks, it's not just her allergies, it's ringworm! She's had it untreated for weeks. I finally black-lighted her BECAUSE everyone else has spots EXCEPT the new kitten! Everyone. Me too. Fabulous. And renal cat Calia can't take meds. And Fuzzywinkle is a long haired cat. And I just don't know what I'm going to do right now. I didn't sleep all night. When the vet opens, I'll call but it cost over $200 to treat the 1 kitten. 4 cats? This is insane. And am I going to have to shave Fuzzy? Will the sick cat never get better and will just keep spreading it? Do I need to put her down? What the hell am I going to do?
2 comments:
that is horrid year and thumps to the rescue for not taking care of the ringworm when it first showed up. there are options for treating ringworm.. Check out this thread.. it's a bit long winded, but there is a lot of great advice on it. http://www.thecatsite.com/t/210789/6-things-i-learned-from-our-ringworm-plague-book-length
Yeah, I read that the 1st time around, Problem is, I can't really clean the spores out of the house. The infected cats have had access to people clothes, bedding, carpets, furniture. It's just in everything now.
On the bright side, no one caught it the 1st time, only the kitten had it so it's not as contagious as the internet makes it out to be. Gives me some comfort since the cats have been nuzzling my hair and sleeping on my pillow at night. Fingers crossed, I still haven't gotten it in the scalp yet.
The vet thinks the others will clear up after 2 or 3 dips. If not, there's always the oral meds. But my renal cat can't have the meds and she has it bad. I have no idea what can be done for her.
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