Tenth Life Cat Rescue

Starting again

Our blog has been a bit defunct. The last post was about Ida B., and she’s been living the good life for over a year now! But we are resurrecting the blog for Tenth Life to bring you tales from the trenches of cat rescue. We want to give you more in-depth looks at our kitties, details about their recovery from street life and injuries, and information about what we do.

So, add us to your reader now because soon we will bring the excitement of Tenth Life to your computer!!!

A Whole New Cat

Ida B. is a completely different cat than the one we knew and loved for those eight long weeks of recovery. While she had her jaw fused, PEG tube in, sweater on, and e-collar donned, Ida B. (in retrospect) was depressed. She was incredibly inactive, sad and lonely, and despondent.

Now, free of all those devices, she is a happy, youthful and spry kitty!!! She’s acting her age of on year, instead of the weak old lady she seemed to be while her jaw was fused. She meows for attention, rubs our legs while we’re filling her food bowl, and RUNS around her room. It’s adorable!!!

Ida B. is now facing a new chapter in her life. We have a new foster home for this sweet girl, which means she’s moving on from our care to another temporary home where she’ll be able to get even more love and affection than she already does here. We wish this were her permanent adoptive home, but we’re lucky that it’s the next-best thing.

All that’s left in Ida B.’s long list of surgeries is her spay. After that procedure, she will be ready for a loving forever home!!!

She’s Free!!!

Today, Ida B. has sweet feline freedom again! The appliance that kept her teeth fused together for eight weeks, in order for her jaw to heal after being shattered by a gunshot wound, was removed! Her teeth were separated yesterday, and she can eat normally once again instead of through the little gap between her teeth.

She weathered surgery very well, despite losing a beloved canine tooth, and was eager to eat as soon as she awoke from anesthesia. As you can see from the photo, her jaw is still not quite normal, and never will be, but it is mostly healed and ready for food again! Ida still has to wear a (soft this time) e-collar to prevent her from snagging her teeth on her little sweater when she grooms. Why the sweater? She still has her feeding (PEG) tube because the doctor wants to make sure she eats well on her own before removing the tube. And BOY, is she eating well! The girl wolfs down anything we put in front of her (soft food, of course since her teeth and jaw are still quite sensitive). But nothing stops her - she is so very, very happy to have her mouth back the way it once was.

The PEG tube will be removed next Monday, and she will be spayed and readied for adoption shortly after. Ida will return to the surgeon for a check of her healing progress and then she’s in the clear!

Since coming home from surgery yesterday, Ida purrs nonstop and has lost that air of despair she had those eight long weeks. She rubs our legs as we prepare her a bowl of food instead of a syringe. She meows with her mouth open instead of groaning through fused teeth. And she actively seeks out a loving pet from us all the time. It’s wonderful to see a rejuvenated kitty!

Throughout her recovery, I felt so terrible that she couldn’t understand that her state was temporary. All she knew was that her mouth didn’t work the way she wanted it to. She couldn’t eat the delicious food she desperately wanted, drink the clean water her parched tongue and mouth ached for… Ida didn’t know that this misery would, eventually, come to an end. She just endured. And now it’s over!

This sweet girl has amazed all of us with her tenacity and resilience. Ida B. has earned her name and now we need to find her the perfect forever home. Please contact us if you, or someone you know, is interested in giving Ida B. a pampered life.

Two Weeks

We’re getting so close to the end, we can nearly taste it! Two weeks from Monday, Ida gets her jaw un-fused at the vet and she can eat like a normal kitty once again! By now, after six weeks of tube feeding, sweater-wearing, and Cone of Shame-donning, ALL of us are sick of poor Ida B.’s state of being. The girl is ready to EAT!

About once a day, we give Ida a bowl of food to lick. She doesn’t seem to get much actual food in her mouth, but she enjoys the taste and the action of eating. At least she doesn’t recoil in pain any more.

She has been unbelievably patient throughout this whole ordeal. Ida seems to have grown accustomed to the e-collar, and is drooling much less these days.

We feel like we’re in the home stretch now, and we cannot WAIT to have this final procedure done so she can go back to being a normal, happy, active kitty!

Once she’s amply recovered from the jaw un-fusing, we will schedule routine procedures like a spay, vaccines, and other checkups. Please continue to consider donating to Tenth Life to help cover these costs, as they add up very quickly.

The Latest on Ida B.

We saw the vet on Wednesday. He said that Ida B.’s teeth and jaw are still in place. All we can do now is keep on keeping on, feed her as we have been, and wait out the six week healing period. Poor girl has to keep her e-collar on, as well as her sweater, and we cage her now only overnight, as opposed to any time we weren’t in the room. She’s become so inactive that we really don’t worry much about her jumping around and jarring her teeth loose. She’s a good girl :)

We scheduled her teeth to be un-fused on May 17th. That day cannot come soon enough. We also increased the amount she is fed four times a day since she had dropped just a tiny bit of weight since her last appointment. She is no longer receiving pain meds or antibiotics. Now it’s just a matter of keeping her healthy, as happy as possible, and calm until her recovery is through.

As I type, I am sitting on our screened-in porch with Ida B., as she looks around and enjoys the sights, smells, and sounds of the outdoors without any of the threats. (We at Tenth Life do not condone letting house cats be outside. The world has far too many dangers for sweet, unsuspecting animals.)

Soon, I hope to post video of the other daily care we give Ida B., what I like to call her “spa treatments.”

Until then, please keep spreading the word about Ida B. The food we give her (prescription high-nutrient food) costs $1.50 per can. And the procedure to un-fuse her teeth is of unknown cost presently. I hope to get an estimate soon.

Meanwhile, kitten season is upon us! Countless un-spayed females are becoming impregnated as the weather heats up, which means many, many kittens are entering this world. We will likely end up with some of these kittens, each of which costs $50-100 to spay or neuter, and another $50 or more to vaccinate and prepare for adoption. Spring is a costly season in the animal rescue world and we need your continued help.

Thank you for your support so far!

An excursion

One week down; 5 or 6 to go. Sigh…

Ida had her teeth re-fused one week ago today. We see the vet on Wednesday morning for a recheck. I’m hoping she gets the thumbs-up and that the vet will relax some of the strict rules he gave us last time, which include keeping the e-collar (cone) on Ida B. all the time, and caging her when we’re not around.

Poor Ida has really seemed depressed lately. Who wouldn’t be? She has to wear a cone around her neck and she’s in a cage (albeit a very large one) too many hours a day. She’s fed 4 times daily and gets a nice little half-hour visit each time, but I worry about her mental state. Ida is clearly bored, and the sparkle in her eyes is fading. I would love to get her a copy of Winged Migration to give her some entertainment (my cats loved it when we watched it many years ago).

In the meantime, though, we decided to give Ida a little treat and take her on an excursion to our screened-in back porch.

It may not look like it to you, but to us who know Ida intimately, she clearly enjoyed her little outing. We hope to do it more often since the weather has been so nice. She was riveted by the birds, the sounds, and our neighbors’ rat terrier. But the thing that made me smile the most was her little nose sniff-sniff-sniffing the entire time. I was so thrilled to be able to give her this teeny little slice of happiness in her otherwise difficult life.

Updates on all

Ida B. is hanging in. She is tolerating her e-collar, feedings, medications, and even the cage she spends (too much) time in. We’ve been giving her nightly “spa treatments” where we wipe down her drooly face and chin with a warm wet washcloth, brush her body since she can’t clean herself, and clean her e-collar… it gets unbelievably messy! We finally have a few very sweet volunteers who are coming to help us with her feedings. We still need lots of help paying her medical bills, so please consider donating. Any amount, no matter how small, truly does help.

In other news, we recently got two kittens, Crocus and Jonquil.

These two cuties seemed fine at first, but suddenly, Crocus (the tabby) stopped eating. She was sneezing and not breathing easily. The kittens’ concerned foster mom called Tenth Life and we showed her how to syringe-feed Crocus until she (hopefully) began eating on her own. This was last Saturday. Monday rolled around and Crocus still was resisting food. So she and her sister were dropped off at the vet, where they are now receiving round-the-clock (read: expensive!) veterinary care. They’ve been severely dehydrated and running very high fevers. They get syringe-fed regularly, and even undergo nebulizing (they are placed in a little box that pumps in mist to help them breathe more easily). These poor kitties are still fighting for their health and need to turn the corner soon. It’s been a difficult road for them.

We at Tenth Life are very pleased to be helping cats who are so much a part of our mission of helping those who cannot be helped by the typical rescue. But the only way we are able to continue this mission is by getting help from our supporters. Please consider giving anything you can to help us pay for the much-needed care and treatment these kitties require. And if you cannot share your money at this time, please take a few minutes to share a link to this blog on your own blog, via email, or on Facebook or Twitter.

Thank you so much!

:(

Feeling sad that Ida couldn’t enjoy the delicious taste of that meaty goodness that comes in a can, I offered her some licks from a bowl today. Voraciously, she gobbled up the small amount of watered down food. Suddenly, she frantically tried to paw at her mouth as she shuddered in pain. Of course, I felt AWFUL for causing this pain to her, but I wanted her to have some happiness in her bleak day…

Needless to say, the tube-feeding continues. Stay tuned - we’ll be posting video of Ida’s feedings so that you know what she/we go through four times a day.