Threading Through The Red Sea Part 3: The Incredibles

Just as Easter blend death and suffering with healing and resurrection, the Syndicate had met their share of loss and victory.


Learning from prior experiences with Calici, most cats that can hold on to, or stop sneezing after 10 days more likely to survive. I have eight kittens with Calici and although they all hold on until the tenth day, four of them can't make it back to their better side.

This is the story of the other four who stays:

From left to right: Friskies, Blossom, Tiger Lily, Mini

Some elder told me that it is the last drop that turns the cup over. In my case, it's Friskies.

I call him that way because when I found him inside a deep gutter (it's 2 meters or 6 feet 65 inches deep, I have to borrow a ladder to pick him up), he looks exactly like that yellow kitten in Friskies Cat Food bag. He was the smallest in the Syndicate and so I don't put much hope when his symptoms start showing (see the black crust under his eyes and on his jaw).


The one who turned the table is Friskies, the weakest of the whole batch of sick kittens whom I took in. He was already sick when I met him on the street (see that black crusty residue under his eyes and mouth), and I took him in only so I can comfort him through the darkest hours of his short life.

I had forgotten that God works mysterious ways, and that's not limited to human only. By the time I lost Patch, Friskies can no longer swallow anything. He was severely dehydrated and fully dependent on his iv to live on. On wee hours in the morning he often wake me up with his cries, asking to be comforted from his fevers. I haven't got proper rest for the whole week now, and that took toll on my strength, as well as my spirit. Though I hate to admit it, at that time, I kind of rather let him go than watch him suffer longer.

Just when I was completely ready to let him go, I notice that he had stopped sneezing. His nose no longer runny. He still got watery eyes, but they are a lot sharper now than the first time I met him. It seems like he got over his critical period and get a grip on life.

He started to grow stronger, and soon enough, learned to sit instead of laying down on his side, and along with his slow recovery, he brought my morale back up.

I might not lose after all.

Unfortunately, however, I ran out of money, and the healthy ones need food too. So I called one of the vets on the clinic and asked if I can get some more antibiotics on credit.  I told my vet that Friskies had just turned for the better, and I don't want to give up now, despite the grim chance.

She laughed and tell me to come after her practice is over.

What awaits me is a box full of antibiotics, iv needles, Ringer Lactate and cans of Royal Canin Recovery. An invoice in an envelope too, actually, but I figured she can wait for another week with that big grin.

"How's your score?" she asked "four to none" I said, sourly.

"Chin up. I've got more than twenty coming up here with the same infection, but none of them came back alive"

I can understand why. Here in Indonesia, vet is only useful when people want to know when to mate their "pet", how much litter their "pet" is going to have, when their "pet" is having trouble laboring, while they want all the litter alive so they don't have to score a "loss", when they need vaccination before selling their puppies/kittens, and when their animals are old and need "sleeping"

With daily agenda like this, it's no wonder that veterinary science in Indonesia has not gone far from 1950s curriculum, and that most new vets in this country is more adept in "breeding science" than healing science. Come right here to Bandung and I can show you that most of the vet here is either a licensed breeder or an animal show enthusiast.

While countries like Europe developed a more advanced way in handling Calici, most of the vets relies only on one shot of antibiotics and vitamins and leave the rest to God.

Surely, I will rely on God, but that doesn't mean I will just sit there watching the cats die doing nothing. This Calici has to learn by now that I am no Rapunzel who sits forlornly inside her tower waiting for Knight in shining armor. More so because 2 months old Tiger Lily fought her hardest, clinging to life.

Tiger Lily, 2 months old, at the peak of her sickness.

And at the same time, Blossom is getting better as well. Mini is catching up a few days later.

Like an hour of sunrise throws eight hours of night, one after another, the sick cats are getting better. They stop sneezing, and their eyes started to dry and come alive. They are still week and have to rely on tube feeding, but I can see that the antibiotics and immune booster start to work faster and better.

The night is over, but I can't be happy yet. I still need to stay vigil to their condition until they completely stabilize.

Truly, like many articles and scientific journals, what truly heals cats with Calici is total care, even when the cat seems to stop living (can't eat, can't drink, can't breath, can't move), the readiness of their patron to become their second life is what turns the table. In my case, it's my willingness, and the vets, and the Syndicate's supporter to keep on living in their sake. I keep feeding them, re-hydrating them, keeping them warm, keeping their nose clean. I am ready to be late to work, and lie about my tardiness. I am ready to give anything, and not stop even though all hope seems to be gone. The vet keep pushing me to give them antibiotics, advising me on yet another method whenever new symptom came up, and the readers, my friends, the Syndicate's supporter keep watching out for another ways to handle Calici. All this is what kept them alive until today.

The Incredibles, as the title said, is not only the cats, but also all of you.

With this post I wanted to say that, no matter what kind of disease, whether it is a small scab, a deadly virus, or a lurking cancer, whether you are in the best part of the world that has the best veterinary technology, or in the most remote of Africa, Amazon, or deep in the forests of Asia, when your animal is sick, and the avant garde treatment is far away, the first, and foremost healing that you can offer your animal is commitment. Commitment to become their shadow, commitment to become their life, commitment to hold on till the end, whatever the result is.

Because back then, when these cats said "I do" to go home with you, they gave you their nine lives, and have been living up to it; but now, when they are sick, or old, or weak, the only thing they need is one life. Just one.

So, like Moses raise his voice in gratitude when God guide them through the red sea, and away from Egypt, I too, raise my voice, in the name of The Whiskers' Syndicate to you all for your support, your information, your input, your donation, prayers, good thoughts, and most importantly, not giving up on us, a bunch of castaways and useless, unimportant existence.

Here is the four champions taken today: Saturday, April 28, 2012, 10 days after their last sneeze.

Tiger lily

Mini

Blossom

Friskies

Happy Easter 2012



Note:
In reference of my statement about how vets in Indonesia lacks knowledge and training about wildlife conservancy and healing science, below is a link to a testimony by Dr. Liang Kaspe. She has been successful in breeding endangered animals in Surabaya zoo, her last successful story is assisting comodo dragon and her baby. The story is in Indonesian, but it is easily read with google translate or babelfish.
Dr. Liang Kaspe: Surabaya Zoo's favorite Midwife

Threading Through The Red Sea Part 2: The Fantastic Four

Easter in pagan perspective has been associated with spring: a month full of heavenly showers that brings earth back to life from its deep sleep in winter.

In Indonesia, a tropical country right on top of equator, Easter will mark the shift from rainy season (October - March) that pours rain every day, to dry season (April - September) that never rains.

Bandung, however, is a little bit different.

Geographically speaking, Bandung is located in an ancient crater that was once a Jurassic lake between three giant volcanoes. This will mean water does not evaporate that fast, and it makes this town damp all day long. For people who lived in 4 season countries, Bandung will be in eternal spring.

Demographically speaking, Bandung is a small town, with lower level of education, slower economic growth, and as result, prehistoric attitude. Bandung's state of mentality is like USA or Europe at the start of 20th century. If that doesn't seems too far behind, we are now in the first quarter of the 21st.

But what is heaven for humans, is hell for the animals. The endless showers, the dampness, the constant cold is a killer combination for cats, especially those who doesn't have a roof to hide from the rain, ones who can't find a warm attic to run from the cold temperature, and for all that roam on the merciless streets in the breeder capital of Indonesia, where approximately one thousand of unwanted animals were dumped in landfills and abandoned in traditional markets, cemeteries, and the streets to fend off for themselves.

May I remind everyone once more that Indonesia doesn't have animal welfare law?

Enough for the academic lecture, because what I saw year after year as a rescue in Bandung is no more than feral (automatic) genocide. Bandung is in perpetual kitty season, and every month of two my house will be flooded with sick and hopeless kittens, or weak and helpless seniors.

Due to limited space that I have (again) I have to choose which one is coming with me, and which one has to live communally in abandoned lots or cemeteries, with rations of food that I regularly distribute. Whiskers' Syndicate does not have volunteers, we do not have people, much less communities like those boasted by the "sanctuary" or "shelter" or "rescue" organization over the internet in USA or Europe, or wherever. Whiskers' Syndicate is a tiny, rented studio filled with hopeless cats (and occasionally dogs - horses goes somewhere else) undergoing their green mile while they are queuing to climb the rainbow bridge. I am the only man power behind the "rescue" though for long, I consider myself a competitor of the animals' undertaker who tries to give them comfortable last mile in life.

One of the most common undertaker that I encounter is called Feline Calicivirus, which is:

virus of the family Caliciviridae that causes disease in cats. It is one of the two important viral causes of respiratory infection in cats, the other being feline herpesvirus. can cause a rapid epidemic, with a mortality rate of up to 67%. Initial symptoms include discharge from the eyes and nose, ulceration in the mouth, anorexia, and lethargy, and occur in the first one to five days. Later symptoms include fever, edema of the limbs and face, jaundice, and multiple organ dysfunction syndrome.
Diagnosis of FCV is difficult without specific tests, because the symptoms are similar to other feline respiratory diseases.

It has a beautiful nickname too around vets: Calici. It sounds more like the name of a pretty woman than a microscopic grim reaper don't you think?

Let me translate to English: cats infected with Calici will not develop severesymptoms. It will start with sneezing and watery eyes. They they will grow ulcers on their tongue, which grows in number and the sneezing will block their ability to smell food. When this happened, the cat will lose their ability to eat (naturally because it is painful to chew or swallow). Since they aren't eating, they got dehydrated, and finally, meeting death in a slow process in which their body will convulse for hours, depending on their physical strength, as they scream in pain due to the endless spasms until their last breaths.

Kittens without adequate motherly nutrition is better in this case, because death come quicker, and therefore, less painful.

Calici has a very simple body structure, so they are easy to duplicate. It can disperse through air, water, even simple touch, which is why it is highly epidemic in cats, because they groom each other, the sniff each other, and often share food and water bowls.

This is our version.

Easter week this year started with Sue and Tykes, whose stories I shared in another post. Tykes had moved on sooner, but Sue lived on for another month when I brought Spring home.

I met Spring near a monumental park, five minutes bike ride from my rent. She was sitting helplessly by a deep gutter under torrential rain, because some maniac put mud on her eyes and cut all of her whiskers.  I think I don't have to explain why people done that.  Some do it to pass their already useless time, and because it's "cute" (yeah? in which part?).

As soon as I dried Spring up and lay her down in a warm pillow at home, I set out to buy some medicine, and on my way home, was almost made stumbled when a rabbit jumped across the street under the heavy rain.

Or I thought it was a rabbit. The white fluff shiver under some neighbor's doorstep and I don't have a heart to just pass, because whomever rabbit it is, it must be cold and scared. So I pull aside and bent down, and met Tutti Cutie in the eye.

Now scroll the screen back up, and look at those round, hopeless eyes, and you will see why I can't turn him down.

So I come home with medicine, and another soaked up kitten.

Two days later I saw Sue stared outside through the gap of the fence for the whole hour and when I peeked out of curiosity, I found Patch, not much better from the other kittens: shivering, sneezing, and starving.

With that condition I was bound to have a showdown with pretty Calici again and so I geared myself up, just enough when Sue started to refuse her food, and grow a white speckle on her lips. The grim reaper is coming.

Handling Calici is generally symptomatic. For those who really love and care (and pay attention) to their cat(s) it's not that hard, as long as you keep an eye on your kitten and detect it on the first symptom appearance, be it lethargy, or mouth ulcer, continuous sneezing, or even food refusal. Keep your kitten warm all the time, continue to rehydrate her, never stop the antibiotics, extra dose of vitamins and immune boosters, and if he or she can hold on over a week or until his/her sinuses dried up, there are good chances that they are going to make it.

However, that also means you will have to monitor your cat practically 24/7. My rescue years had given me a solid training in giving intra venous re-hydration so that I can handle the initial stage without having to go back and forth with a sick cat and expose them to the elements and instead, keep them in the warmth of their isolation basket. I made myself a night lamp with 15 Watts bulb to keep the kittens warmer, and if necessary, add a bottle of warm water inside their cage.

The challenge will escalate when they got into the next stage, because you will have to force feed them. None of them would want to eat because their tongue and lips are full with ulcers, hence it's painful to even swallow. In some cases, they can have cramps on their jaws that they can't open their mouth at all.  I am sure you know how much patience and skill is needed to tube feed a sick cat.

If nothing can go in, you will have to leave your cat at the vet's because he/she will need iv, which is yet another challenge.

Working with feverish cats means they will be trashing around due to the uncomfortable heat and pain in their muscle, and if you cannot keep them calm and still, the iv needle can't go in, much less help them.

Sometimes, instead of appreciating what you are trying to do to save their lives, cats in pain will bite you.

So here comes my dire warning: if you are not tough enough to master your temper, don't touch your sick cat. Bring them to the vet, and let them handle it, with the risk of ripping your wallet or draining your pet insurance. Trust me, it is still better than killing your beloved pet with your own hand in a fist of anger.

Handling Calici, in short, require patience, and high quality care. Your cat will need your totality, and if one cat need you that much, I have eight.



It is impossible to hold three side jobs in a week and still spend sufficient time to attend the sick properly, So I took my leap of faith, and gave up all my side job. I left our food solely to the strength of my salary, and a lot of prayers that one of God's angel, or God Himself, will drop His wallet somewhere around my account.

Luckily, He did. Otherwise I would have been hitting the headlines when my starved body, along with twenty cats, were found inside a small rent in a beautiful resort city of Bandung. He sent a few of His angels to drop extra money so I can buy cat food and stock up on rapidly-decreasing medical stock.

And then, there is some quote saying that you a ray of light, no matter how small, is the brightest when you are in the darkness. Of all eight, four shone out brightly.

From left to right: Sue, Spring, Tutti Cutie, Patch

While other kittens come and go like the swift breeze, these four: Sue, Spring, Tutti Cutie (spell it like you want to spell Tutti Frutti ice cream) and Patch fought harder. They do not refuse their iv, they embrace the warm bottle, they stay still when the iv needle puncture their emaciated body, and they tried their hardest to eat, though only one lick and leave everything else to the tube.

Sue fought a good ten days before she gave up and went over the bridge on Holy Thursday, just when I read the bible on Last Supper as my atonement for not being able to attend mass. Early in Good Friday, Spring moved over, and in the evening my Tutti Cutie call it quits on my laps. She is the youngest of the four, and the only one to develop jaundice.

Patch went on in early Saturday.

I hate myself for losing, but one of the two vets to whom I am a regular warned me that Calici is not every cat's fight. Here in Indonesia, in damp, damned Bandung, Calici is certain death. For those orphaned cats who has no guarantee of immune system to hold on over a week are magnificent, and I should never forget that I still have another four that I need to defend. Not to mention the other twenty that I manage to keep healthy.

My brother's text is even more cruel. Here is a copy paste:

Not everyone can stay. Noah's ark can only hold a pair of each animals, and you've only got two hands. You've got four more to fight with, so better keep that chin up and those eyes open rather than crumbling for the dead.

It is the most cruel comment, but probably the truest.

Threading Through The Red Sea part I: A Mi Manera

M

ost of baby boomers like me possibly don’t know Frank Sinatra, though he is one of my favorite singers.

Not because of his voice, nor his look, but for the invaluable lyric in each of his songs.

One on my top list is “My Way” that talks about a performer (my mother said it’s about a runner, but I don’t know, Frank Sinatra’s already dead before I got to learn about that song so I can’t ask about it via his twitter), who, tells his journey of life: the ups and down, his rights and wrong, and the best of it: his pride in questing through life. This song is re-formatted and sung in Spanish by Simon Cowell’s Il Divo around year 2k and I love this Spanish version better because it actually empowers the original lyric.

Last week, however, I found an even more powerful version of that song through the life journey of a small kitten, namely, Frank, of course.

I met Frank sitting forlornly on a sidewalk by the puddle near my office, where I stop to pat him on the head and share the ferals along my path. He was a little bit dirty, but otherwise seemed all right, and even have full stomach, so I intended to leave him after feeding but feel uneasy because he was, after all, too quiet for a kitten. He didn’t meow, he didn’t jump, or run, or head butt, he just sit there, looking at me, with blank expression.

So here is the plan: my boss is not around that day, and other staffs won’t care, so I can sneak him into the office, bring him to the vet, and when he was declared OK, I’ll put him back.

Part one initiated immediately. I can easily found an empty space in my bag, push him in, and walk by as if nothing happened. Nothing, but a little note in my head: his belly was darn hard.

For the rest of the working hours he stay inside my workstation, sitting by the fireplace (well, actually it’s my computer CPU). He ate more fish, drink the whole bowl of water (trust me, he drank a lot!) but still quiet.

More Fish please! Those behind me were done yesterday!

Frank in my office, having a hard time sitting because his belly was so big

Hence, part two initiated. I bought him home, put him inside a basket along with Mama-san (she has an appointment for spay surgery, but that’s another story) and brought both to the vet.

The examination is pretty quick: he has mega-colon, and the vet told me he is a SHE, though she (the vet) knows that I address any cat with “he”, it’s my trademark quirk.

Mega colon is:

 a term used to describe a very dilated, flabby, incompetent colon.  This usually occurs secondary to chronic constipation and retention of feces, but may be a congenital dysfunction.  Megacolon itself is not a specific disease entity, but it will usually result in obstipation (inability to defecate), since feces is retained in the colon in a larger diameter than is able to pass through the pelvis.  This feces also becomes very dry and hard, as water is absorbed by the colon.  Surgery may be required to treat this condition if medical management has been exhausted.

                                                    ~American College of Veterinary Surgeons

Mega colon  usually happened to senior cats between 5-9 years old, but here in Indonesia, anything can happen, especially to ferals. My newly-found, three months old companion probably had severe, prolonged dehydration on the street before I found him. His feces were too hard so he has to get a C section, which for a kitten his age, is a very risky procedure.

The other option? Leave him be, and he’d be dead after a few days, because his hardened feces will obstruct the intestine, and whenever she eats, or drink, his intestine will grow bigger, and finally burst.

I took the risk, and the vet start operating him right away, despite the clinic was fully packed that day.

We started at around 8 pm, and finish at 10 pm, extracting around 100 grams (that’s an ounce) of hard-rock feces from his colon and a cup full of urine. The surgery itself shouldn’t be that long, but the expanded colon had already obstructed his urinary tract. He can’t pee, and all his urine was kept inside his small kidney that it was swollen and when the vet cut him open, some of its smaller blood vessel already started to burst. His kidney was bleeding and the surgery became more complicated.

Frank has a zipper on his belly

What amazed the whole clinic was the small kitten’s resilience. With extended surgery time, no one had high hope, but he made it past the surgery and woke up with a loud meow. He came home with two iv pipes on his small body, but the vet said his vital sign is good.

The vet was shaking her head when she put on the iv, Frank's leg is as big as the catheter head

Hi there! got a nice dream back then?

Tell me about vital sign. This little kitten is such a devil, even a few hours after the surgery (that got to be wee hours in the morning right? The surgery finished in 10 pm) he already tried to jump out of his basket, and therefore, prevent me to get any sleep at all.

This made me worried because he was supposed to stay put (remember the iv), so my only option is to bring him along to the office to make sure she won’t  drag his iv bottles all over places. Unfortunately my boss is coming, so I can’t possibly smuggle him inside without being noticed. The only thing I can do is to make him as comfortable as possible that he can sleep the whole day like other cats do when I am working. Then, for the whole day I worked with worry inside my head.

Canceling all my after-hour jobs that day, I went straight home, only to see what I feared the most. There he is, sitting by the door, dragging an empty iv bottle behind him. When I gasped in terror he instead pranced and jumped and run to welcome me, still with that iv bottle behind him. So, I called the vet and tell her what happened as well as informing her that I am going to get the iv needle off Frank so he won’t stuck his extra tail somewhere and hurt himself. The vet laughed, and I remembered her telling me I got myself a tough little lady, but that means the kitten’s going to be all right. It was Wednesday.

For the next two days Frank took part in toppling my kettle off the counter (don’t know how he done that, I just saw the kettle tumbled), running all over places and rammed into the adults, got bathed by Peta (my ultimate, supper nanny cat – you won’t believe he’s male), climb on my bed, play hide and seek in the cardboard castle, catch four roaches and killed them all by himself, and eat like an elephant. He climbed all the way to the top of my head whenever I sit on the floor to put my shoes on, climbed on my legs asking for my food, and get Sue out of her shell and made her a ‘normal’ kitten instead of an outcast.

The next Saturday, four days after, no one would believe he’s been sick, though I’m worn out for not sleeping for four nights watching him and prevent him from jumping all over places too much and tell him to sleep instead. I have cancelled all my side jobs and lost good amount of money that I need to keep the Syndicate operating, but for a life, it’s worth it. I brought my feisty little friend to the vet clinic early that day, before its open hour because I know the staffs and vet would want to play with him a little bit, and everyone is happy to pet him and call him “good girl” until the vet said “Josie, this time you are right, your kitten is a boy, not a girl” Obviously his enlarged colon had suppressed his tiny testicles that he looked like a girl.

A ha; and I bet Sue is not going to be happy about it. Sue, my pocket monster, jacket camper kitten was kind of shy and a loner, and no kitten, much less adult cat can go near her without making her hiss or yowl. This tough kid, however, can do that with no problem.

Since then, his name is Frank (you know where that name came from right?) and I happily book an appointment in Tuesday to remove his sutures.

At Monday, however, I found him sitting powerlessly by the door, among everyone else, when I came home from work.

All right, kittens are known to drop their stamina suddenly, only to bounce back a moment later, but this is worrying, so I called the vet again, ask her to stay longer (it was 9 pm) because Frank is deteriorating at an alarming state.

I arrived at the clinic fifteen minutes later, and both vets at the clinic were ready for lifesaving procedures. Frank is still sliding down, and within the next hour almost every pipes and cables in the surgery room were attached to him. They gave him warmed up iv, oxygen, heart monitor and then performed CPR when he slide down further, and they didn’t stop trying until midnight.

Frank was gone.

It’s not the first time the two vet ladies came to me withholding their tears. In this breeder capital city the most complicated thing a vet can perform is a C section for a female animal in labor (the breeder gave them too much hormones and vitamins they have too many or too big children that they can’t come out naturally), but for them, the real challenge always come from me, with my street picked animals, and though neither of them wish for such challenge, it gave their four years of bachelor degree education more meaning.

I shrugged. “Hey, Frank was hopeless, but you ladies gave him a chance to be a real kitten for the whole week. Don’t say that doesn’t count”

“But he was the bravest, strongest kitten I have ever met”, said one nurse, “I think he is a miracle”

“Then let’s keep it that way, won’t we? He did it his own way. He broke all of our forecasts”

I mean, we would never know why he slides down that fast, but he was a street cat  kitten. It has been a harsh weather, and we wouldn’t ever know what he’s been eating before we met, how he lived and how hard the elements had beaten him in his street life.

But just in case any of you are curious. Just in case, below is the real song, so you know what Frank is like:

And now, the end is near;
And so I face the final curtain.
My friend, I'll say it clear,
I'll state my case, of which I'm certain.

I've lived a life that's full.
I've traveled each and ev'ry highway;
But more, much more than this,
I did it my way.

Regrets, I've had a few;
But then again, too few to mention.
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exemption.

I planned each charted course;
Each careful step along the byway,
But more, much more than this,
I did it my way.

Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew.
But through it all, when there was doubt,
I ate it up and spit it out.
I faced it all and I stood tall;
And did it my way.

I've loved, I've laughed and cried.
I've had my fill; my share of losing.
And now, as tears subside,
I find it all so amusing.

To think I did all that;
And may I say - not in a shy way,
"No, oh no not me,
I did it my way".

For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught.
To say the things he truly feels;
And not the words of one who kneels.
The record shows I took the blows -
And did it my way!