Carry on Beautiful!

I was so scared this post was going to be a sad one, and I’m beyond relieved that it isn’t. The last week and a bit has been hard to say the least. We have named the kittens now though! The stripey one is a boy, and we’ve named him Otis, and the darker one is a girl, now known as Lucille. Now you’ve got the context, let’s get into it.

On Friday the 10th of May, I noticed Otis panting, he’d spent a few days screaming and he wasn’t eating, so we called the vet. With the current pandemic and everything, we had an online consultation where we sent a video of the kitten to the vet, expecting to be told how to look after him over the phone and have everything be fine. Instead, the vet told us to get him there as soon as possible.

I called my mum, got the cat box ready, and got him to the vets as fast as we could. By that point he was gasping for breath and we were really worried about him. The vet came out to the car, confirmed a few details, and took him off to sort him without us. I’m totally on board with social distancing, especially for someone like the vet who is super essential, but it was super hard just sitting in the car while three of my cats were in the vets.

The vet we have is lovely, for anyone in Liverpool I always go to Vets for Pets on Penny Lane, she explained to us that he most likely had pneumonia, apparently common in young kittens, and that we could either pay around £60 for a chest x-day for him, or pay closer to £10 to give him an antibiotic shot on the assumption that it was that, and gave us the advice and information we needed to feel comfortable just getting the shot. I’d have liked to have him x-rayed at the time, but we just couldn’t afford it and the vet assured us it wouldn’t make any difference if she gave him the shot anyway.

So, Otis has his shot, and the vet told us he’d either make it through the night and we should take him back again the next day, or he wouldn’t make it through the night. This was also when we started having to bottle feed him every 3 hours. Every time I got up in the night to find him I was convinced he’d be dead, it was really horrible, but he made it through the night!

When we took him back the next day, the vet had a huge smile on her face. His colour was better, he was moving around more, he was more alert, he was just so much better. He had another shot, and antibiotics for us to give him at home, morning and night for five days. While writing this, we finished the five days yesterday and Otis has made a full recovery. He’s back to eating from his mum, he’s gaining weight, he’s learning to play with us and his sister, and he’s learning to wash!

We could have really done with not spending £100 on the vets, and if I’m totally honest I am a bit salty about it, but I don’t regret doing it at all and I’d do it all again to make sure he’s okay. It’s definitely been a good prompt for us to look into pet insurance.

You may notice I haven’t said much about Lucille, and that’s just because she’s been totally fine through all this. She’s almost double the size of Otis, and she mostly eats, sleeps and plays with Otis. We have handled her a little, but she mostly just wants to play with her brother so we leave her to it.

Bobble is being a great cat mum, though she could do with not running away from her feeding kittens every time she hears anyone go into the kitchen. She’s so attentive to them, running back as soon as they make a noise, and there’s nothing cuter than seeing her lay with her front paws over her babies while they all sleep.

I’m still not super impressed that we managed to take in a pregnant stray cat, and I really didn’t need all this added stress, but now that they’re here I’d not give them up for anything. They’re so sweet, and Otis especially has already been through so much with us. It’s so funny to think that we really thought we would be able to give them away once they were old enough. These little guys are very much part of the family, and will be staying that way.

-Dana