Picassa: Long Journey Home

It's a cloudy Sunday after an additional job when I suddenly decided to take different road back home. The small paved road was empty, but recent repair on it left a few rocks left by roadside, and a black thing too dark to be a stone. Frankly, I thought it was a lump of asphalt.

I drove my bike to avoid it, especially because I see a hint of white sedan behind me, when I realize that.... the lump got eyes!

So instead of driving away, I throw myself between the "stone" and the car, that immediately brakes but still hit me on time. I fall down (of course) and meet eye to eye with a black, extremely terrified kitten.
I sacked her up and brought her home, wondering why she didn't run away from the car. After all, it is an empty road, and the car is slow. Slow enough for her to avoid it, if she wanted to.

The problem is, it wasn't that the kitten didn't want to run, but she couldn't run. She can't even stand up, because her hind legs were dislocated. Something must have hit her before, hard enough to threw her to the road and dislocated her hind legs, making her unable to run.
Since no vet is open on Sundays, and there's no animal hospital in the city, I had to do it myself. I relocated her hind legs back to its place by the same principle that I was learning back in PE class.
I called the little kitten "Picassa" due to an abstract "print" on top of her eyes that made her look as if she is wearing a masquerade.

The next day, however, I brought her to the nearest vet.

The vet said I did a great job relocating her hind legs, and said that she has nothing to worry about. I told him that she can't walk properly, and that her left leg seems to be higher than the right one, so she kind of walking abnormally. He said it was a simple muscle strain, and that her right leg is the one that got a little bit swollen. He gave me a prescription and told me to leave. My heart and mind rejected his statement in choir, but I took the prescription in silence. He is the vet, not me.

Given the prescription twice, Picassa was crying whenever she littered, and I saw blood. The third prescription, more blood. So I stopped the medication and brought her to another vet, the vet that used to handle my other cats. I show her the prescription, and she said "The prescription is to hard for a kitten. It's acidic to her intestine and the blood is because her gastric and intestine kind of scalded"

My heart sank. This little kitten, away from her mother, alone on the streets, got dislocated leg, cannot walk properly and now has scalded GIT (Gastro Intestinal Tract). Not funny.

The vet told me to treat her GIT first, then we can go and treat her leg, and by the way, it is the left leg that has problem, not the right.

I wish I can go back and give the other vet a good punch.

So Picassa spend weeks drinking gastritis medicine, and eat special gourmet I personally designed: brown rice powder, milk replacer, and multivitamins.

The special recipe cured her GIT, but her leg was damaged forever. Her left hind leg was higher than the right, so Picassa walked with limp as if her left leg is shorter than the right one.

We can have her leg operated, so that she can walk properly, however, the surgery will require a vet to put some metal pen to attach her bone, and such technology is very rare in Indonesia, and that would mean, it's extremely expensive. Plus, like the vet said, Picassa is 2 months old. Forcing a surgery may crush her bone, so she suggested series of physiotherapy that will help her cope with her physical condition, in the hope that she might grow more or less "normal"

I followed the later advise. So starting the next weekend, Picassa drove with me to have a physiotherapy, and her condition improved as time pass by. She can now walk almost normally, she can run, she can jump, and the multivitamins as well as extra calcium gave her a very healthy appetite. The therapy itself was not cheap, but if that would mean giving a new hope for Picassa to be adopted, I don't mind spending another IDR 4,000,000.00 (more or less USD 400.00), at least, I will figure out how.

Picassa is two months old,  has gone through a lot of pain, and passed a long journey home. I can at least appreciate her perseverance and faith.

Please consider Chipping In to help Picassa heal. Remember that  1 US dollar will worth 9,000.00 Indonesian Rupiah. It means your support will be multiplied ten thousand fold. There has never been better investing opportunity.