What to do.... You're a volunteer and foster mom for your local shelter. Currently you are fostering 9 kittens and a momma cat when the shelter calls and asks if you can foster a special needs cat.
The cat requires an amputation as the former owners didn't get the leg treated when it was broken and it has healed improperly causing the cat to be in constant pain and they've decided they don't want a cat who is gimpy and grouchy. The shelter has raised the money for the surgery, but needs a quiet home for the cat's recuperative period. Well, if you're Norma, mother of the WisCATsin kits, you say, of course!
To make room for Emma, the amputee, Marigold, the momma cat, is going to the shelter for adoption. Meanwhile, in checking with the vet, Emma's pre-op blood tests show she is FIV & Felv negative, but she's a bit anemic so they decide to give her a course of anitbiotics before performing the surgery.
A week later they repeat the blood tests, but send the samples to a human lab. The results still are not normal, but show immature red cells. The vet and pathologist decide to do a bone marrow test. After the results of that test also come back with no clear indication of a problem, they decide to go ahead and do the amputation.
While the vet has Emma under anesthetic for the amputation, he decides to see if he can find out what is causing her blood problem. He finds an enlarged spleen and a suspicious looking lymph node, which he removes. She will stay at the vet hospital for a day or so, receiving iv pain medications.
Emma came home the next day with a transdermal pain patch and lots of stitches. Norma decides that if the results of the spleen and lymph node show cancer that Emma will stay with her as long as she lives. Emma is a bit tentative about balancing on 3 legs but is learning to move around. She's purring and seems much better considering all the trauma she's been through.
Emma continues to improve and even play with her mousie. The test results come back on the spleen and lymph gland. No cancer! Emma goes back to the vet for a check of her stitches and removal of the pain patch.
The next couple of days, Emma seems to be in more pain, so Norma takes her back to the vet for another pain patch after the weekend. At the end of the following week, 10 days after her sugeries, she has her stitches out and the final pain patch off. Improvement begins immediately! Emma is clearly feeling better. She learns to walk steadily, then run a bit, and even jump up onto the window sill of the room where she is living. She also begins eating well, wheras she'd only nibbled at food before the surgeries.
While Emma seems to be improving, the staff at the shelter report the mamma cat, Marigold, is very unhappy at the shelter and is pulling out her lovely long fur. Norma goes to the shelter and opens Marigold's cage, she jumps down and starts rubbing and purring on Norma. Back she comes to Norma's house. It takes a day or so for her to adjust to being back in a room with her kittens, but in a few days she's happy, purring and playing again.
In the mean time, Norma, has been chatting with the other MeowChat folk and has described Emma and her ordeal. Jackie (Dexter, Conner and Diana's mom) in Michigan begins to ask "pointed" questions about Emma: how soon would the vet say she could travel in a car? would she be able to go up and down stairs? Finally she decides that she will drive to Wisconsin--11 hours from her home!--to adopt Emma. It was love at first sight for both Jackie and Emma when they meet. Emma sleeps in bed with her new forever mommy the 2 nights she was in Wisconsin. Then on Sunday, they leave for the 11 hour drive back to Michigan.
Emma is having a ball in her new home. She's playing with all the toys, loving sleeping on a down comforter, and so far is keeping Jackie's other 3 cats kind of off-balance, wondering who this newcomer is and what she's doing in their house. But Emma is such a sweet, loving cat that they will all be best friends before long.
Want to help make Emmie feel welcome? Post in her very own discussion forum!
Emmie
