If You Still Want To Donate

Now that I am no longer an official rescue, and no longer a registered charity, donations cannot be sent to me by a PayPal donation button. But there are still cats who have been rescued who need food and medicine, still feral cats who depend on me for their sustenance; I might not be rescuing others any more, but those rescued before are still with me and have requirements. If you feel that you would like to help, I would be grateful. I cannot send a tax receipt in return, however.

The best way to donate would be to open a PayPal account (it doesn’t cost anything) and send money that way. Once you have an account, just log in and hit the big blue ‘send’ button; type @MaryAnneCats in the address bar for the destination and then put in the amount you wish to donate. There will be a small fee.

You can also leave a comment on my blog and we can connect through email and arrange things that way.

Either way, I and the cats would appreciate it.

My Reality Check

Mr. Sterling left about an hour ago. He went to his new home in another town about an hour away from me. This morning when I woke up, I had an epiphany. I can’t do this anymore. I shut down my nonprofit for a reason. I cannot do the work anymore. That realization became quite clear to me when I discovered I couldn’t even pick Sterling up correctly. My hand does not want to form around anything that I am picking up. I can’t even open up the Sheba kitten food packet because in order to do that you have to hold the container and then peel the heavy foil back. Again, my right hand said “Nope” even giving him his medicine was difficult. My right hand shakes periodically. My trigger fingers on my right hand fire off whenever they want to. I just realized that I can’t do the work at all anymore.

I called his new mom, she was so excited to come and get him. I gave her a long list of what to do and not to do with him because he’s not out of the woods until he gets so sutures out. This is definitely going to terrify him. He is a scaredy-cat.

I had no choice. He was a lot of work and I got him to the point where he’s not so much work. But I can’t have him here. Having back to back therapy appointments that run an hour at least has left me so exhausted. I did everything I could do to get him healthy.

At this point in his life, he’s not acting like a normal kitten. But he is had so much going on with him. We have no idea of his history, but I am afraid that he’s sick beyond just the surgery that he’s had and the pain that he’s endured. But I’m hoping for the best because he really is a sweet boy.

Sterling Back from Surgery

Sterling came home yesterday late in the day. He was very lethargic, kind of loopy moving in circles. I put him into his cage. I made some adjustments while he was at the vet, knowing he’s going to be in an e-collar. I did not want a carrier inside the cage; I didn’t want him bumping his collar all over the place and stressing him out further.

I gave him a tiny bit of food and some water. It was close to bedtime so I off to bed I went. I set my alarm periodically checking on him. He has three sutures in the tip of his tail that’s left. He was doing quite well until I checked on him at 2 a.m. His e-collar was off. He was sitting upright in his cage, looking quite proud of himself. The little scamp.

Quickly checking his sutures, I was relieved to see they were still intact. I had kitty-proofed the room previous while he was at the vet. I couldn’t have him get under the couch: that would’ve been a bad deal.

Because of the nature of my injuries after surgery, having the cage on the floor was not working for me. I enlisted the help of a kind neighbor who came over and we lifted the cage up on top so that it was chest level for me. It is a lot easier now to care for him.  

He had a 10-minute supervised walk-about in the cat room. There was no wobble in his walk. He was alert, showing no pain, and his eyes were clear. He did explore every corner looking for an escape. He is so used to roaming the streets. I know that he’s a bit confused about what has happened to his freedom.

After his 10-minute jaunt, I gently picked him up  putting him back in his cage and the dreaded e-collar went back on him. It’s been a lot of years since I’ve had an injured kitten to care for. It was gratifying to see that my vet has gone away from the stiff plastic e-collars to the soft flexible ones. Sterling still doesn’t like it, but I do!

He’s eating and drinking. Thankfully, he’s pooping in the litter box. I found some exceptional cat litter made by Arm & Hammer at Walmart. It’s not clay litter or clumping litter. It’s made of corn fibers. Right now, he is snuggled up to snuggle-puppy. He seems very content. I hope he understands that there are people who love him. People who are praying for him. And one person in particular waiting in the wings for when she can bring him home. Yes, he has a home. I do not need any more cats. Currently there are 14 cats living here in my sanctuaries.

As for me, I went to my physical therapist on Monday. My occupational therapist on Tuesday. Today I can barely move. My hand and fingers are extremely swollen. I ache all over. But as they say no pain no gain. My homework from my PT is to actively make my right arm swing when I walk. She also is giving me a bit of a hard time because my posture is not what it should be. I am 6 feet tall and apparently I have uneven shoulders. On my OT side, he wants me to really try to make a fist. To go past the pain that’s bearable into the pain that is not. I will do my best, however working with frozen fat fingers, it is a bit difficult. I just don’t have that flex anymore.

I just checked on Sterling before I get on with my day. I will be staying home. We are getting another heat wave here soon. I have to figure out how to keep Sterling cool not having central heat and air in my home. I have a lot of electric fans, though.

Sterling's newly stumpy tail

Sterling and his snuggle-puppy

Sterling

Friday brought me a new arrival. Yes, I have a new kitten. He is a very brave kitty. He has a degloved tail. Observing his injuries makes me think that he must have gotten into a car engine and the car started. I don’t know if he screamed. They heard him and stopped the car, somehow he managed to escape and run away. No one to help him over his injuries, he was on his own. It has been so long since it happened that ‘proud flesh’ has taken over. His eyes were glassy and full of pain. His nose was running. He was sneezing and coughing. He had fleas everywhere, even around his eyes. It’s been quite some time that I have seen a kitty with so many fleas. Ear flaps were black. He was literally a mess. But somewhere in there is a beautiful dilute mackerel tabby.

I gently picked him up. The end of the tail was denuded and dry. I could see that proud flesh was starting to grow. I put my hand under his stomach and started probing gently to see if kitty had had been wounded anywhere else. I also felt the beginnings of two testicles. He’s a he.

I don’t know if you’ve ever known a kitty who had a degloved tail or not. But proud flesh is extremely hard to heal. It takes forever for the body to cover the wound, essentially pushing all of the dead and decaying tissue away.  I could see where it was sluffing off. The smell was putrid, indicating infection.

He had a high fever, which since has broken. I put him immediately on amoxicillin. I’ve given him meloxicam for his pain. I’ve been putting ointment on his tail at least 5 to 6 times a day. It dries out so fast. It will actively bleed for no reason. I tried to get him into the vet, but there were no openings.

I am calling the new kitty Sterling. He needs quiet. He is in a cage, a very large cage in my cat-room. My other cats have been bounced out of the room and they are not happy. But he is the sole occupant. I’m keeping the room dark, his cage covered. Feeding him four times a day, canned and dry. He’s eating like a horse. He is peeing, but he’s not peeing in the litter pan. His litter is shredded paper. It sticks to his tail sometimes like glue. I had to completely redo the inside of his cage. Taking out all the blankets in the sheets I had for him and for padding.

Eventually, he pooped; massive diarrhea all over his carrier. He will not use the litter pan. What he does is he goes over to the litter pan and scoops out a good amount of shredded paper, then pees on it. He pooped inside the carrier.

Sterling will be here for a very long time. As I said, proud flesh has a mind of its own and it’s very challenging to heal. He has been de-flead, he will be dewormed in four days. I feel so sorry for him. I can look in his eyes and know that he is just so painful. All he wants to do is sleep and decompress. I looked it up online, and if they amputate his tail, which I’m sure they will, the cost of the surgery is anywhere from $880 to $1,121.

UPDATE: I just got back from the vet. Sterling is having his surgery right now; his tail will be docked, he’ll be neutered, equipped with an e-collar, given a long-lasting pain shot and vaccinated. It will be a little less than $880, but still much more than I have right now. If anyone wishes to donate, contact me, please.

In particular, Sterling needs Sheba brand cat-food. Any donations of this would be great. Sterling and I would be very grateful.

A Work in Progress

What I still cannot do with my dominant hand…

Open doors.

Open any type of pop, top cans, especially cat food cans.

Open jar, lids, and plastic containers.

I am re-learning how to write.

My right hand shakes so bad some people believe I have Parkinson’s disease.

I am unable to drive.

Cannot drive my riding lawnmower.

I am unable to make a fist.

Brush my teeth.

Shampoo my hair.

Eat with silverware.

Pick up anything off the floor.

Reach anything on a shelf higher than my waist.

Walk Kota more than 20 minutes without pain.

Pick up anything heavier than a empty soda pop can.

Getting dressed in the morning properly is a struggle.

Pick up my kittens or my cats.

Pet Kota with two hands.

Text or type.

So far due to the extreme swelling of my fingers and my arm, my right arm is completely useless to me. They tell me that it will take eight months to a year before they know if I will fully recover from the complication of the surgery. They cannot guarantee me that I will have full function of my arm, fingers or my shoulder, or even be able to lift my arm to reach the top shelf in grocery stores, which is something I could do before the surgery.

I am working very hard to prove them wrong. Doing all the exercise exercises as many times a day as I can, and if I’m doing chores around the house, I try to incorporate the exercises with my household chores.

I am fighting to get back and be myself again.

The Potato Game

It’s not like she doesn’t have a gazillion toys to play with - or perhaps Cricket is taking her cues from her sister. The game is called “let’s play with the groceries and drive Mom nuts!”

I went grocery shopping today. I bought those big potatoes. I call them the big bakers. The potatoes went in a large vegetable bin on the floor in the dining room. While I was preparing strawberries, I heard this large thump.

Fearing they were up to no good, I went to investigate. That that’s when I saw Cricket in among the baker potatoes. I backed off a little bit and watched her, wondering what she was trying to do.

This silly kitty was trying to get a big baker up the side of the bin and unto the floor! It was a valiant effort on her part, however, in the end, it was a big fail!

She tried several times, so I went and grabbed my camera. She tried biting, but these potatoes were almost bigger than she was, and she couldn’t manage to move it very far. In the end, Gibby and Flash decided to enter into the game. Perhaps they figured underneath all of these potatoes was a mouse that was on their diet, not potatoes. These babies are such scamps!

Rare Shadow

The last plum-tree I wrote about yesterday is pretty close to the creek. It was very hot but as I was walking this huge shadow just appeared in the pasture and I looked up and there was an eagle! I have not seen an eagle on my property in about 20 years. I am sure that it has to do with the fires. It was just so incredible to see this eagle flying overhead and landing in one of my trees by the creek. Reminded me of being in Alaska. We used to see eagles and ospreys every time we went down to Homer to our boat that was anchored there. It’s wonderful to see one here again.

More Adventures With Fruit

A couple of days ago, I was out in the pasture, and saw that my plum trees are going crazy! We’ve had such high temperatures that the trees have just exploded with plums. We have seven plum trees in our orchard. By the time I picked two of my trees clean, I had seven buckets of plums!

We also have two apple trees in our orchard as well as cherry trees. But I think my two apple trees have a suicide pack. We have lost so many limbs just this year, with all these weird storms we’ve had, that now my trees are tipping over and uprooting themselves. If one of them does end up tipping over it’s going to take out the fence that we recently had put up. If the other one decides to fall, it will land on my well house! I just put an ad in the local paper looking for someone who will come and chop down both of these trees and keep the wood. So they chop, they haul and they get all the apple wood they want.