First time posting- LONG post-lol! Raising 4 orphaned babies!

Hi there! This is my first time posting. Approximately 3 weeks ago my daughters (14, 16 & 18) found kittens behind our house. They had been orphaned and were not in good condition. All but one had eye issues and they were all underfed. We are not at all cat people, but I wasn’t going to put them back out to die.

Needless to say they have wormed their way into our hearts. 🙂 We started out just taking them in to get them well. We were going to find homes. Well, we found homes. All but one are staying with us and the other is going to a good friend. 🙂 They will join my 2 furbabies- Rylie the shih-tzu and CeeCee the chihuahua.

I wanted to share my story and tips but I mainly came to say thank you for all of the wonderful advice. Although I just registered today, I have been reading the forum since I got the babies. Weekend before last I came here because one of my babies had gotten sick. The advice I found here was priceless so thank you all very much. Here is a brief rundown on my babies and their individual conditions:

ARIA- Aria is mostly black with white socks. 🙂 Aria had a small issue with her left eye. Her right eye was fully opened but the right one had a ton of debris and mucous. I held warm compresses and tried to free the debris without hurting her. On the 2nd day that we had them, Aria literally crawled down my tank top and into my bra and curled up and fell asleep. She stayed in my shirt for days. I would bundle her into a handtowel and back into the shirt she would go between feedings! Aria has continued to thrive and is doing wonderfully! She is a ball of energy!!!

SPENCER- Spencer is gray and white. Spencer had both eyes sealed shut. She fed very well though. I also did warm compresses on her eyes. One opened after a couple hours but one remained closed. I was afraid she was missing her eye. She never even tried to open it. Spencer also loved staying in my shirt. I was very close to Spencer from the start. At about day 16, she finally started cleaning her own eye so I started trying to help her along. About 2 days after that she opened it just a tiny bit and has opened it a little more each day. It is about half open now. Other than the eye, Spencer is in excellent health.

HANNAH- Hannah is mostly white with orange and black calico coloring on her head and paws. Hannah was not in great shape when we found her. She had one eye completely sealed shut. She didn’t take too well to the feeding and I was afraid she wasnt going to make it. I kept working on her eye. We finally got everything cleared out of it after about 5 days. She didn’t want to open it so I didn’t even try. At about day 9 or 10 (of us having them) she tried to open it finally. I was applying an antibiotic eye cream and using homeopathic remedies to aid her. Once she opened that eye, it was like an entirely different kitty. She became playful, started eating like a pig and I knew she was going to be fine! YAY!!!

EMILY- Emily is a brown tabby/calico color. She was the only one without any eye issues. She was the strongest, largest, and healthiest. She took right to the bottle and fed perfectly from the start. She ate so heartily we called her our little pig. When we bought them toys, we went thru bin after bin at PetSmart and Petco to find her a pig. At day 9, my daughter was feeding Emily when she noticed that Emily was shaking and she rejected the milk soon after she started. Of course, I was away from home and couldnt get home right away. I had her bundle her up and keep her close.

I finally got home and it seemed like she has either a small cold or allergies. It has been a long time since I have had babies, but I figured that babies couldn’t be much different so I did what I had done many times with my girls. I steamed up the bathroom and we went and sat in there for about 30 mins. We repeated this several times. While in the steam she would do fine but as soon as we went out, she struggled with breathing. She was mouth breathing and had absolutely no interest in feeding. I also noticed that one of her eyes had some discharge and was closing. I planned to take her to the vet the following day, but she bounced back. The next morning she was eager to eat and breathing thru her nose. She had a little sneeze here and there but she seemed better. As with kids, of course, by night, her condition had deteriorated. Her eye was swollen shut and continuously oozing. I kept warm cloths on it and did my best to keep it from closing. I made up my mind to take her in the next day. We just moved 52 miles across town so I havent established a vet here yet. I noticed when I was at Petsmart that Banfield offered a free initial consultation. So I called and set up an appt.

The next day came and she still wasnt doing good. Her breathing was very shallow, once again not eating, mouth breathing, etc. I was very worried. By the time we got to the vet, she had urinated, and in the process of cleaning her, my daughter found a small piece of pus on her private area. The vet tech walked in, I told her what was going on, including what we had just found on her privates and she said let me go take her to the vet. I thought that was a little odd. Usually the vet comes into the room. But, whatever… we waited. The vet came in and we exchanged greetings. When he asked how I was I replied “I will be much better once you tel me that my baby will be OK” He says “Well, I don’t know. She is so small.” I said “Oh, she is actually a she? LOL” (I use she for all of them in case you havent noticed. Sexing cats is not my strong suit. I had a cat growing up that I thought was a female until the day HE died. Yeah, I’m not good with that.) Anyway I said “She really is a SHE?” And he says “Oh, I don’t know… I didn’t even check.” I kinda shrugged because isn’t that usually something they do? Shouldn’t he have looked after telling him that there was pus there? But I waited/listened for the diagnosis and prognosis. He says “Well, she is just too small to be tested for anything. She is too small for meds. She is just too small” I said “Well do you have any idea what it is? Do you think she will make it?” He says “No, I really don’t know and it’s hard to tell if she will make it.” He hands me a bag with a box of medicine and says “This is a vitamin. Give it to her twice a day and keep her warm. That is about all I can suggest” He then turned and walked out. No goodbye, nothing. The vet tech walks back in and I said “Is that it? Are we done?” She says “yeah, he is done with you. You can just go pay for the vitamins” I was floored. He didn’t even offer me an opportunity to ask questions.

I walked out to the desk to pay and I realized that he never addressed her eye at all so I asked the receptionist if she could ask the dr (I use that term loosely) if I should continue the compresses and if there was anything I could use. She comes back and says “He said no more compresses” I was stunned. What is that going to hurt? How do I keep the discharge out? How do I keep her eye from sealing?

I wasn’t even close to being happy with his answers but it was a Saturday afternoon and aside from emergency vets, there was no one to take her to. I kept babying her and we practically lived in the bathroom filled with steam. The only way she could feed was to be surrounded by the steam.

Of course from the first symptoms I had seperated her from her sisters. Well this night I was so worried I made a small basket and put her basket in bed with me. At about 1:30AM she let out a shrill scream and her body went stiff as a board. I thought that was it. I called the first emergency vet I could find and we were out the door. They put her in the oxygen tank and it perked her right up.

The dr came out and talked to me. She was AWESOME. She was by far the most caring vet I have ever encountered. She explained that, yes, she is really too small for antibiotics because f the risk of diarrhea. However, she and I agreed that taking the chance at this point was worth it. We decided to use pedialyte with her milk powder instead of water. She also prescribed an eye ointment to alleviate the swelling and heal her eye. She advised me of a couple of home remedies and we headed home.

For the first couple of days it was truly touch and go. I kept her on my chest as much as possible. With her permission, we continued the steam showers. She suggested that we use the baby product ‘Little Noses’ to help free her nasal passages. It is a saline drop used for babies/infants and it works wonders!!! We never saw any more pus on her privates so either it wasn’t pus or the antibiotic wiped it out.

The vet visit was 10 days ago and she is now doing great!!! We have been weighing all of them from the beginning and while she was really sick, she stayed right around 7.45-7.90 ounces. I am proud to announce she is now at 10.40 ounces!!! She still has some catching up to do as her sisters are all at 14-17 ounces. But that’s ok!!! She has come a LONG LONG way!!!

I also found something else that I will swear by. I wanted to pass it on to anyone else with a sick baby. I was thinking- if a steam shower is good for her, wouldnt a vaporizer be great? So, we built a container around the vaporizer so she couldnt get close to the steam, we put the entire vaporizer/container into a normal playpen/play yard and I covered all but one short end. For the first few days, I had to lean into the pen to feed her because she would lose her breath in the regular air and as a result couldnt feed properly. Now, she is making the transition between regular air and steam just fine. She is definitely on the upside now! I still have her sequestered, and she still spends alot of time in the pen, but she is doing great. The membrane over her eye is still swollen, but there is limited discharge. The vet said it would take a while for the membrane to go down. She is eating regularly, and she never did have diarrhea. For the first 3 days, I mixed only pedialyte with the powder. Once she had a solid poop, I did half pedialyte and half water. I am still doing this mixture. I have also started adding a small bit of cereal to the formula to bulk it up a little. I did this for her sisters a little while before I did hers but she is handling it perfectly. One last thing I am doing is a homeopathic remedy I found on another site. I thought I was going crazy when someone wrote that they were putting apple cider vinegar to try and help conjunctivitis. I couldnt see what in the world it could possibly help. They said to just put a small drop on the back of their scruff of the neck. Well, I started that yesterday and she isn’t 100% yet, but as I said, it is improving little by little. I don’t know if it is the ointment or the AC vinegar, but to get my baby well I would try anything. I am sure you all know how that goes!!!

It is so odd that the healthiest one of the bunch turned out to be so ill, but it’s probably good that she was so healthy to begin with, otherwise it might have just knocked her out.

I hope my tips will help someone else as much as all of your tips helped me when I was seeking answers. The 6-7 hours between visiting the first vet (Quack) and then going to the emergency vet I spent here. I was desperate to help her. Thank goodness for all of you who have shared all of your wonderful advice.

For those of you who stuck thru all of my rant, you must be a saint (or like me, glutton for punishment) HAHA!!! I will try to get some pictures posted soon. I can’t wait to share my babies with you all! Thanks again you guys!!!