Furry Little Challenges

These last few weeks feel like the longest few weeks of my life. I had to look on the calendar to see just how much time had gone by.

J. and I broke up for one of numerous times about 3 weeks ago. Very nasty breakup which I won't go into now, but it was so nasty I never would have thought we would get back together. I actually felt good about it and felt like I had a new lease on life. We seem to have drifted back together but things feel more tentative now and I'm not putting great hopes in a future with him. I just want to enjoy the time we have together until I leave Va11arta which I'm hoping will happen in May. For good? Not sure yet.

About 2 weeks ago I went to volunteer for the spay/neuter clinic. It was a show of my dedication because without J's car to drive there, it was much more difficult than normal to get to. After asking directions many times from many people and getting off the wrong bus and walking more than the 5 blocks I was told I needed to walk to transfer buses, I was finally let off near the mountains in what looked like the middle of nowhere. Va11arta is strange that way. It doesn't take all that long to be on the outskirts where it's just dirt roads and you feel like you're in some rural place.

I arrived at the clinic to find another volunteer (and board member of the organization) bottle feeding some little black baby kittens. Aw, cute. I didn't pay them too much attention because I was there to work so I set about seeing who was working on the vet staff, how many volunteers there were, how many animals were in recovery, how many animals were waiting, etc. As can be the case, it felt like total chaos with waiting animals and recovered animals scattered in different locations and no master list used to check the animals in and track them through the process until discharge.

As the day wore on and the surgeries were completed, I finally had a minute to sit down and heard the kittens crying. I took them out of their little cat carrier one by one (there were 5) and started feeding them with human baby bottle. I asked L@lo, the head of the clinic, who was going to care for the kittens (they'd been dropped off in a bag the day before) and he said, "You Cristina!" It was a combination of my regular motherly instinct and probably the fact of being recently broken up with J. that I decided to agree and take them home. (Luckily L@lo was nice enough to drop me home in his truck.)

Most people who like cats in any way might be thinking, "Aw, cute kittens!" like I did at first. But the idea is different from the reality. They all had sharp nails and wanted to climb up my bare legs. They were all frantic for food and could only feed from a bottle which took about 20 minutes per cat. They had diarrhea all over the place and several had really high pitched cries. And they needed to be fed every few hours.

Another volunteer P@mela came over to assess the situation. She'd fostered kittens before and I reached out to her for help. She took one look at things and said, "This is way too much for one person" and offered to take 3 of the kittens from me to care for with her husband.

We kept in close touch that first week and she let me know that this batch of kittens was the most difficult she'd every dealt with. We de-wormed them at one point which gave them really bad diarrhea for days. It was a struggle just to keep the place clean, bathe them only once a day and feed them from the bottle several times a day. She expressed what I was feeling when she started one email with, "Now I have a better understanding of child abuse!". Not that either one of us would have hurt the little devils, but it was a huge test of patience and love!

What compounded matters was that I've been sick for most of the year so far. Some of the same old muscle aches and pains, slight sore throat, feeling run down. I finished a course of antibiotics when the kittens first came and I've just started another course for a urinary infection. And this all comes at a time when I was supposed to have my promotional packets printed and finished and start the distribution.

Luckily, a little over a week into things, another volunteer J0anne said she could take the kittens for a few days. It helped an incredible amount because I started feeling a bit better and during that time she started weaning them from the bottle and started them eating solid food from a plate. They came back here again on Monday and it's now a different world. Their stools are solid and they're not frantic for food. I can feed them just a few times a day and each time just by putting some food (mixed with a kitten milk) on a plate and microwaved for 10 seconds. I still heat water bottles most times after they eat before they go back into their bed in the bathroom for a nap. But today they spent the good part of the afternoon out and about in the apartment playing and exploring.

Chuyit0 has been somewhat indifferent to them but occassionally sniffs them and lets them sniff him. J0na is completely obsessed with them and will groom them and play, but his playing turns rough pretty quickly so I have to separate him into another room. J. jokes that they are meat flavored lollipops for J0na which is a cute way of explaining how he starts off licking them and ends up biting at them till they cry out (especially the little boy who's feisty).

It's been such an amazing experience, the closest I've had to having a newborn baby. I can see how you can just get lost in Babyland and the day rushes by and you feel like you haven't really gotten anything done. Or how you have to choose how you will spend the precious moments when they nap: shower or eating? How you share responsibility for care with your partner. How the babies can kill a romantic moment. And a sad thing was that one of the 3 that Pamela took to care for ended up dying. It makes you realize that you do the best you can, but sometimes despite what you want and all the love you have, things just weren't meant to be.

In a few weeks they will be ready for spay/neuter and then they will go to the Saturday adoption in front of the library that the $PCA of Va11arta runs. It will be hard to let them go because I have such high standards for pet care and I only want what's best for them and will have to just trust they will be well-cared for. But for now, I will continue to enjoy them and watch their amazing development.