Kayla was a little feral calico cat living in our neighborhood. Someone had trapped her and had her spayed - the little "v" notched into her ear tip let us know. She was usually seen with another, darker, calico. We wondered if they were sisters. Our elderly neighbor, John, fed them regularly and watched out for them. But he couldn’t touch them – no one could.
One day he came over to ask if we'd seen her. We hadn't. A week went by and no kitty. Sadly, this often happens with community cats and he grieved her loss.
Another few days went by and we got a call from Bob, the neighbor over the back fence and across the creek. He also fed some neighborhood cats and was always on the lookout for anyone who needed help....and he knew who to call when he found one.
"Can you come over? A cat has been here off and on for a week but she's not eating, and she looks like she’s dying. She’s here right now.”
It was Kayla and she did look bad. She was severely congested, and her skin just hung off her. "Probably pneumonia and end stage kidney disease," I thought to myself. We could hear her breathing for quite a distance away. I set a trap, but without much hope. Cats who can't smell won't eat, and if a cat isn't eating, they have no reason to go into a trap. Even when they are eating it can be challenging to trap a cat who has been trapped before. I tried for two days without luck. She was clearly suffering so I decided to try something foolish and a bit dangerous. I decided to try and corner her and grab her with my bare hands.
I recruited a couple of friends who were smart enough to know this was a bad idea, but willing to go along with it because they knew they weren’t going to talk me out of it. I gave each one of them a giant beach towel to hold up as a “pretend wall” and we slowly worked her between the back fence and a shed. There was just enough room for them to block the exit one way – I would have to stay between her and the other end while I advance on her. Unbelievably I got her in the first grab and quickly dropped her into the waiting crate. Up close…she looked even worse. She was skin and bone, very dehydrated, she had such a flea load it looked like someone had rolled her in ground pepper, snot was pouring out of her nose and drool from her mouth and her breathing was really raspy.
This was clearly going to be a euthanasia and I comforted myself with the thought she’d go quickly instead of a slow miserable death outside. Still it was the middle of the afternoon and the vet clinic was hopping. I decided to wait until that evening when things would be quieter. She slept in the crate in my laundry room. I offered her food, but she had no interest. I let John know we had her, and the circumstances. He was sad for her, but relieved she wasn't going to suffer and hadn't died out there alone.
That night we went to the clinic. The veterinarian I expected was not on, but I knew the one who was. I’d worked well with her before; I just didn’t know how she felt about working with a feral cat. Dr K and the vet tech, Beth, came in and I explained the situation. But….something about this cat had touched me ….. so…..
“I think she probably has pneumonia, but she is so weak I am sure I can hold her in a scruff. Can you just listen to her lungs and make sure?”
“Sure,” she answered and as Beth and I restrained Kayla, Dr. K put her stethoscope on her. She moved it around, listening.
“Well her lungs are clear. This is entirely upper airway,” Dr. K told us.
“You mean, just a really bad cold?”
“Basically.”
We all stared at Kayla.
“I wonder if it’s worth trying to get some blood so we could check her kidneys.” The clinic had its own lab so we could get results quickly. For the thousandth time I was so happy to have this resource.
We all stared at her some more. She looked half dead as it was. Suddenly a deep, low rumbling started.
Beth said “Is she growling?!?”
“I don’t know. Wait.” I said as I put my hand on her side. Beth still held her by the scruff. “Oh my gosh, she’s purring!”
All three of us started talking at the same time. “She gets a chance!”
Her bloodwork showed she wasn’t as bad as we expected, although she did test positive for FIV (aka “kitty aids”). She had a badly infected mouth and a bad cold, and those two things were keeping her from eating or grooming. The lack of grooming had allowed the fleas to set up camp and gave her a blood infection that made her severely anemic. Surprisingly, her kidneys weren’t in bad shape. Her feral temperament meant she couldn’t be admitted to the hospital – she couldn’t be handled. But I was confident I could get the necessary medications in here. Some things we wouldn’t be able to do, but we could at least give her a chance. I took her home, with a big bag of medications.
I moved her into a giant dog crate in my kitchen and made a tent out of a sheet and set up a vaporizer to help open her nasal passages. It reminded me of when I had "the croup” as a kid. The antibiotics were crushed into baby food which was warmed to make it smell stronger and more appealing. As the steam did its job she got more interested in food and then the antibiotics started to do their job. Her bone marrow did its job and - without the fleas - her anemia resolved. I became “the food lady” and over the weeks of recovery, she grew to trust me and willingly let me handle her. Once she was no longer contagious, I locked my cats in the bedroom and let her out to roam at night. In the beginning I slept on the sofa…just in case.
Late one night, she woke me with loud screaming/yowling. It sounded like she was dying. I basically levitated and with shaking hands tried to find the light and get it turned on. When I finally succeeded, I found she was..........talking to her toy fuzzy mouse. Loudly. I was so relieved I collapsed in a fit of laughter.
"It's a good thing I'm trying so hard to keep you alive cause otherwise I'd kill you about now!"
“Mee-er-Ow-oooo!”
That little, tiny, calico girl had the voice of a Siamese cat. A large Siamese cat. And from then on, she used it frequently.
Kayla loved her new life! She liked to look out the window but was not at all interested in going outside. She had a few additional bouts with health issues over the years that kept her off the adoption site. We learned she had an atrial septal defect (hole in her heart) that should have killed her as a kitten. At one point she was diagnosed with lymphoma, which turned out to be IBD and we got that under control.
She was a sweet affectionate cat, but if she hadn’t become so sick, she never would have had the chance find out what it was like to be a happy, beloved house cat. She got a happy five years of being a pampered indoor cat before a health crisis took her from us. She left a hole in our hearts, but lasting happy memories of the beautiful girl.
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