One October day in 2005, while I was upstairs in my attic office in my Channahon home interviewing someone by phone, Rebekah burst through the swinging door to tell me Daniel was feeding tuna to a stray cat.
The cat turned out to be a nine-month-old kitten. We asked around town and put up fliers, but we never did find the owner. So we named her Frances. We spayed someone's cat. And Frances is still with us.
Two years later, my oldest son Christopher found an abandoned litter of kittens, so he brought them home. He found homes for them all, except for a tiny black one who was skittish and unfriendly. Would we take her?
Even as I objected, I named her Midnight. We picked her up. She was not unfriendly, just scared and sick. She was FULL of tapeworms (think fettucine in size full) and ear mites. We nursed Midnight back to health. The vet would not spay her until her fecal samples showed no tapeworms.
At nine months, Midnight ran out of the house and got pregnant under our deck. She had three kittens. My husband Ron named them Faith, Hope, and Charity. Midnight tested negative for tapeworms, and we did a mass spay and neuter of four cats. We still have Midnight
Charity (the only male in the group), a penguin used up all nine of his lives in 2013. His escapades could fill another blog.
Hope, our athletic tortie, is living the life (seriously, she is so spoiled) with friends in Morris. Again, another long story.
Faith, our prissy, afraid of her own shadow cat, is also a very loving cat. She loves to be be petteed (I trained her to love it. She used to hate being touched) and loves to pose for the camera.
All our cats are very healthy, and we do nothing special for them except feed them their favorite food off the grocery store shelves, give them fresh water one or more times a day, take them to their annual vet appointments/vaccine, etc.
We give them their space when they want their space. And we love on them when they want that, too.
Only Frances takes medicine and it's not really medicine. She takes glucosamine for joint support, and it's made a huge difference for her. She jumps onto "things" like a kitten.
Our vet marvels at the health of these senior cats. The sheen of their coats. Their bright eyes. Their energy and agility.
All that changed three weeks ago.
Rebekah and I were sick (not COVID, but we got tested to be sure) for a week. During that week. I felt Faith was losing weight. But it was just a vague feeling when I was petting her. I couldn't be sure. So Rebekah made a vet appointment for the following week. Faith was due for shots anyway.
On that Monday, two weeks ago, the day before Faith's appointment, she was suddenly VERY sick. The vet saw her, ran bloodwork, gave her an anti-nausea shot, an appetite stimulent, and fluids. Faith had also lost two pounds from the previous year.
Bloodwork was normal on Tuesday. Faith went for an X-ray on Wednesday. She was worse - and had dropped another half pound.
X-ray had an area of concern, so the vet did an ultrasound. From there, Faith went to the hospital.
Details of her treatment are on the GoFundMe page Daniel began.
While Faith was in the hospital, the vet called several times a day because Faith's situation kept changing. I always brought up the question of what was in Faith's best interest.
But once we could visit Faith (no lie), her situation dramatically improved. She was discharged twenty-four hours earlier than anticipated.
She is continuing to improve (the photo below is from Friday), but she is not out of the proverbial woods yet.
The vet has faith in Faith's recovery.
So we have faith in Faith's recovery.
Can you have faith in Faith's recovery, too?
Any help (thoughts, prayers, donations) are very, very appreciated.
https://gofund.me/3440aeb1
