That's kinda shit.
In less-sad news, though, both of them survived the night. I mean, I only left them alone long enough to get three or four hours' sleep, but still I honestly did not expect the smaller, sicker one to be alive. In fact, he or she has improved noticeably and can actually move around now, whereas last night it practically dead.
One thing I only noticed last night, later on, was that the kittens were infested with fleas. I only spotted them when I happened to look under one of their chins, then when I started parting the fur to look there was flea dirt everywhere. According to the internet, in very small kittens flea infestations can actually be
fatal, due to anaemia caused by blood loss.
This is horrifying. I hadn't been handling the kittens much or I might have noticed this earlier, before they started, you know, dying. Not that I know for sure that this is what did for them, the "mother's milk drying up because she's kind of an older cat" theory is still up there, too.
In any case, I treated them both with this spray-on "flea rid" we had lying around. This was a very unpleasant task, especially since at that point the weaker of the two was completely limp and I had to turn it over to check that it was even alive a few times during the procedure, since it felt like I was rubbing flea treatment into something already dead. It had this resigned expression and everything and I had pretty much given up on it, but somehow today it's still hanging on, considerably improved - though "considerably improved" doesn't mean too much considering it was basically dead. It's not out of the woods, yet.
The other one was wriggling and whinging quite normally as I put the stuff on it. They're so small that I had to spray the stuff onto my fingertips and rub it in that way for the most part.
I can't see evidence of fleas on either of them this morning, so maybe that was a good idea I guess? Who knows.
We'll be getting some kitten milk formula in a little while, so hopefully that helps get them better. I'm pretty sure those products are generally fortified with stuff like iron, right? That ought to help with any anaemia. In my entirely unqualified opinion.
If not, I might try and convince my mother to part with a few drops of the iron tonic she usually has in the fridge.
...Yeah, that's pretty much where we're at now. I don't really have any other Sads since they're all blotted out by this ongoing saga.
The livelier one is adorable, though. It came marching out of the cat box earlier when I first checked on them, squeaking at me before even taking a swipe at my hand. Bear in mind that these things are friggin'
tiny. Then later it was indulging its love of climbing and had made it about halfway up the side of the cot they're in, meowing fiercely to the heavens like some kind of very tiny King Kong.
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Topic: Things that made you sad today thread. (Read 9794969 times)