Here I was with three ‘happy’ cats, a cute little household, working at an animal clinic. Does it get any better than that? Well, that depends on who’s telling the story I guess.

There is one side to working at a veterinary clinic which I did not have the stomach for. I had broken the rules for that before, and I was about to do it again. Last time though, I had found a solution for it, this time, I took the problem home….literally.

Can you imagine getting a call from a woman who is completely hysterical, because she found three young kittens, who are borderline dead according to her and does not know what to do with them? And when you explain to her the options (coming to the clinic and paying to put them out of their misery, or bringing them to the shelter), she almost has a fit when hearing the word ‘shelter’. So you tell her to drop by and have them looked at.

When she arrives, she is carrying a basket with three squeaking kittens in them. I took one look at them and concluded: Feline Influenza. And a bad case of it too. Add to that that they were only four weeks old and well…they weren’t going to be in the best shape, naturally. But I told her I didn’t not think it is lethal. I did think it is a serious case which will require a lot of time and effort. When she heard that, she, again, panicked. She just took in a stray kitten, which hadn’t had her vaccinations yet(and Feline Influenza is extremely contagious), she recently had a baby, there was no way she could take this on as well. I, again, softly uttered the word ‘shelter’, to watch her panic some more. I looked at the little gremlins in front of me, sighed and said, before realizing it:” I’ll tell you what, if you pay for their medication and check-up, I will take care of them hence forth. I will take them home, and see if I can get them back into shape.” Clearly relieved she let out a ‘You will????? You are an angel!!!’. I told her to sit down, went to the doctor, explained him the situation, told him I thought it was Feline Influenza, and explained to him the arrangement I had made with the woman. At the end of the day, he handed me the kittens, the medication and the instructions on how to use it. He also cautioned me to not get attached to the little fur balls, since they were weak and seriously ill. He said he could not guarantee that they would make it.

I came home with three kittens, but fortunately for me, my boyfriend was not home at the time. I did tell him that night on the phone. All he did was sigh though. He knew me well enough to know this wasn’t a request, it was just an announcement. He was to return home in two days, and this way he had some time to get used to the idea.

So then the feeding and taking care of them started. Four times a day they had to be fed, and I had a job as well. I am not proud to say I didn’t always make it. And I was concerned about them being malnourished. Luckily, they were about four weeks old and from five weeks at least two of the three were eating solid food. That one became our little worry-child though. It was eventually my boyfriend who kindly stepped in and convinced the little guy to eat solid food. The reason though, that he didn’t before was because he couldn’t smell the food, since his nose was stuffed.

Then there was the matter of attending to their medication. They got antibiotics to combat the ‘cold’ they seemed to have. Next was the eye medication. An antibiotic ointment was applied three times a day. The infection on their eyes were pretty serious, with one kitten(grey longhaired) having only an average infection,but the second(grey shorthaired) and third(black-white longhaired aka Arwen)one were quite another matter.

The second one suffered a lot, because the phlegm in his eyes wasn’t allowing the ointment to cure the eye. It had to be removed with tools by our eye specialist to be able to heal. It also caused his tear glands to be obstructed, which accounted for a lot of eye fluid coming out when you gently manipulated the eye. The pressure on the eye must have been very uncomfortable.

The third one was worst of all. One of her eyes looked like it was going to explode. The first night I spent one hour on that eye alone I think. Gently opening it, removing the mucus layer by layer, I cleaned it out with sterile water in an attempt to find the eye underneath. But the times after that, she seemed to make great progress. She didn’t have the same problem as the second kitten. However, because her eye had been that infected, and therefore damaged, Mother Nature decided to use her third eyelid(you know, the thing they can put over their eyes at will without closing the eye) to protect the eye. And because it took so long to heal, and because the tissue was constantly infected, it grew shut. She could see through it, although only partially. There was a period where she saw the eye specialist at our clinic weekly to check the progress. And I would want to express my gratitude towards that person here, because she didn’t charge me anything except for the medication she used and sometimes not even that. She knew they weren’t my kittens and that I was doing this only out of idealism. I told her she could charge me, but she was sweet enough to help without charging me a thing.

So here I was with three kittens, meowing at me, demanding attention and my cats and boyfriend not at all pleased. But we made it, and all the kittens were progressing nicely. And I must admit I finally felt like I had a purpose in life. I hadn’t had kittens in the house since I was about 14 I think. And I had missed it thoroughly. And however much work they brought with them, it was a joy to see them grow up, get stronger, play with each other, discovering the world by crawling out of their box the minute they figured out how to do that (God knows I didn’t want them to figure it out yet, at that time, but what can you do). They were my adorable little gremlins, and they were there. As they grew, and learnt how to eat canned food, they went through a phase where they were smelly little rug rats, with food glued to their little bodies everywhere. If you think cats are clean, then you are right, but it still takes a while before they master the cleaning part. Arwen was known as the gremlin(a) at this point. We were very happy to see them eat solid food, I will tell you that much.

Soon, my other cats realized they were not going anywhere, and believe it or not, but it was our Prinny who warmed up to them the fastest. She was the one who licked and groomed them as the neurotic mother-type she turned out to be. Trini soon accepted it in her own ‘nah-what-do-I-care’ style, and it was actually our Lulu who is to this day still taking it hard that she is no longer the baby of the household.

If you consider the doctor didn’t give them much of a chance at survival, I think you can understand my relief when you know that they made it all three, though not all in one piece, or not completely (see next story). And I must admit I am a weee bit proud of myself for being able to protect and nurture them when they needed it and also incredibly grateful to see them grow up into the beautiful cats they will one day be.