Heart of a Lion

It's been 4 weeks and 1 day since Andrew brought Spiffy into our home and hearts, and what a month it's been!  The first few days were a roller coaster of worry and hope as Spiffy dealt with what seemed like nearly insurmountable odds.  Every morning I woke up, afraid that he might have died, hoping that he made it through another night.  I was so afraid he might be dead that I had my husband check on him first to be sure he was still alive.  And every morning, Spiffy was awake, alert, and waiting for us to let him out of the computer room.


During that first week, I was constantly holding Spiffy and cuddling him, and Spiffy enjoyed the attention.  I'd be at the computer and Spiffy would climb onto my shoulder and sit there, leaning against my head and purring as if to thank me for being rescued, warm, fed and loved.  My heart melted at those moments and the little ache I still had over the loss of Riley began to heal.

It wasn't an easy first week with Spiffy...we'd gotten him flea-free the first night (thanks to Capstar!), but we still had an eye infection, URI (upper respiratory infection, basically a cat cold), an infected wound along the bottom edge of his ear, and constipation to deal with.  We diligently kept his eyes wiped clean and applied terramycin ointment 2-3 times a day and also constantly wiped his nose and put him in a steamy bathroom about twice a day.  We cleaned out his ears and applied some NFZ Puffer once a day.  To get his bowels moving again, we mixed some plain pureed pumpkin with wet cat food, along with some milk and a small amount of mineral oil.  We worked hard to help Spiffy get better using our knowledge.  (Just a note...had Spiffy not been eating like a pig, drinking plenty of fluids and had his bowel movements not begun and if he'd been lethargic, we would have taken him to the vet immediately.  Since none of this was an issue, we did what the vet would have told us to do if we'd taken him).

Today Spiffy no longer has an eye infection, his ear is almost completely infection-free, and he is not constipated.  My husband laughed at me when Spiffy did his first big poop after we began treating him for constipation...I don't think I've ever been so excited about cat poop in my entire life!  The URI is hanging on, but is nowhere near as bad as before.

He is my fluffy little baby!!!  Right now he's sleeping in the hanging house on the cat tree just 2 feet away from me.  He's such a beautiful little kitten; if you had no idea what he looked like when we found him, you'd never believe he could have looked that bad.

He truly is a little kitten with the heart of a lion!