World of Make Believe

i put the kitten down today. it was so unhappy. i couldn't do it. it was paralyzed. its front paws, they were paralyzed.
i love it so much. i feel like a failure. but it got to me. it couldn't move out of its own pee. i couldn't do it. i gave up.

i failed that kitten. i failed stormy.

i hate myself so much right now. i hate this, i hate me. god, i put it to sleep. i had it put down.

i fucking gave up. it couldn't move. it was so lifeless.

my fucking god, i'm losing it. i can't. i can't do this. i failed that kitten.

i can't breathe. 

She’s doing better. It’s hard to imagine it’s only been a few days, and I still feel like I’m going to turn gray prematurely. All that being said–

Her front paws are getting a little bit straighter, but they’re still deformed. I’m going to start splinting them tomorrow– I’ve been waiting for a few days for her to get stronger.

Which she is. She’s eating more, staying awake more, and whining when I’m not holding her enough It’s …day three, I think, now. This Saturday, I’m taking her in for shots/etc. (Because I leave to go to Texas on Sunday, and that’s a day that my mother won’t have to take care of her– she’s not a cat person! But she’s agreed to feed and care for the kitten while I am away. )

She’s got such pretty blue eyes. She’s got this amazingly soft fur, and she just seems so happy! Don’t get me wrong, I mean, she’s still so tiny, and she fusses if I don’t hold her until she falls asleep, but she’s just so…peaceful. Happy, and peaceful, and it seems like she’s healthier. I’m hoping so, anyway.

I am sooooooooooo in love with this kitten. And soooooooo encouraged that she’s getting better already. I don’t know if we’re over the hump or not, because I don’t want to get my hopes up, but I’m feeling really optimistic in spite of myself. I am not an optimistic person. And I don’t want to be optimistic, but I am right now. I loe this kitten so much.

Pictures!

Sleeping in its box
Resting on my lap
Awake but chilling (that’s a toy mouse under its chin)
A bit blurry, but wide awake

So, I brought the kitten home.

My mother kind of goes… “What the hell have you done?” And all I said was, “I couldn’t leave it alone!”

Which, really, I couldn’t. My mom knows how I am, so now I am nursing a kitten back to health.

The backstory:

There is this stray cat that went and gave birth to four kittens at my cousin’s house. I went over there yesterday, and one kitten was dead, two are perfectly healthy, and Stormy (I’m temp. calling her Stormy Hope, because I think it’s actually a he now, post-bowel-stimulation) was tiny. Bone-thin, weak, and can’t even walk. I kind of wrestled the mother cat down for about an hour so that Stormy could feed, and she ate. And ate. Eventually we left, to go see the Da Vinci Code, and when we came back, the mother was at least laying down with it. Yesterday I went over there, and yet again wrestled the mother cat, and let Stormy feed again. This time the mother cat stayed still with Stormy eating for a while (yesterday my arms got all kinds of torn up). Stormy ate some more, and I was able to get both of her eyes open. She seems more alert, and is looking around and all. But, I don’t really think she’s getting fed unless I’m wrestling the mother cat, so I brought Stormy home with me. I went to this Animal Medical Hospital, got a small bottle and cat milk for kittens, and they told me how to feed it and get it to go to the bathroom and all, which I’m doing. It’s probably about a month old, if not older, but it’s so weak it might as well be a 2-week-old-kitten. I fed her a little bit more with the formula, now she’s sleeping on my lap. (Just a side note– not only is she the runt, but her front paws are a bit deformed, and I don’t know if they’ll develop and straighten out with time or what.)

So, the update today:

The vet said (when I took her down there to get the stuff) that she’s lost a lot of blood because she’s got a LOT of fleas on her. So it’s a little bit of damage control, too.

I bought some baby food (beef, for the iron) and mixed it with a tiny bit of formula– she ate a couple bites of that, (yay!) and then took the bottle. Now she’s resting. Oh, and I bought some flea spray, sprayed it on a paper towel, and wiped her down with that. (The vet said that spraying it directly was way too strong for her, as was powder and a flea collar, and that’s what she said to do.)

Now she’s resting. But she is going to the bathroom on her own now, so I know she’s not dehydrated. She still can’t walk, but she’s definitely getting stronger. I was holding her against my chest, and when I tried to pull her away to lay her down, she held on with her claws– from her front paws! So that made me excited.

It doesn’t sound like much, but it is. Baby steps. Also, she kind of pushed herself up a little bit in her box. She fell almost right back over, but… :-D

I am SO FREAKING TIRED though. I haven’t slept at all. I slept a couple of hours, but the rest of the time is feeding her, staying up with her. I still wish I knew if it was a girl or boy, but… LOL. The important thing now is getting her healthy. I also bought her a few tiny mice to play with, and she sniffed them, licked them, and fell asleep again!

I do have pictures, though. :) The face shot and A full shot. Next week, the day I leave for Texas, I’m dropping her off at the vet to get some shots, and a bit more care. Other than that, I’m pretty sure Mom’s going to take care of her. (Shocking!) Which, I mean, she doesn’t require much care. Eat, sleep, change the bedding, rinse, lather, repeat. ;)

Pain, pain, pain. Ouch. And I'm still happy.

This stray cat had a litter of kittens at my cousin's house. A litter of four. One of them died already, and there is another one that is just skin and bones. A little gray one. The front legs on it are deformed slightly– but it's hanging on to life, somehow. 

So. I held the mother cat down. Forcibly. Got my arms clawed up and shit in the process. (This isn't the first cat I've done this with, either.)  And held her down, just so the little one, the little gray one could eat.

It ate. And ate. And ate. After awhile, the mother cat started sniffing it. I had to leave after an hour, to go see the Da Vinci Code (good, but not great movie). When I came back, the mother was licking and letting the runt feed along with the other two (healthy) kittens.

Progress. Gave me the warm fuzzies in spite of the raised pink and bleeding scratches. Oh, and the sneezing.  Obviously, the mother cat is fine. I know how to hold her without letting her go, even if I did get torn up in the process. But she recognizes the gray one as her kitten again, at least for tonight.

I'm not sure if it's too late or not. I do know I'm going to be checking up on that kitten daily, and if it gets neglected again I'm taking it and I can bottle feed it for a while, care for it like a mother cat would.

I think I've dealt with too many cats in my time. I just really hope this one makes it. I named it Hope. I don't know if it's male or female, and don't really care right now. I just want to keep it alive. But…I felt SO happy when I came back to see the mother cat treating Hope as her own again. If nothing else…at least I did that.

Human beings need a lot of things to feel alive.
Family
Love
Sex.
But we only need one thing
To actually be alive.
We need a beating heart.
When our heart is threatened
we respond in one of two ways.
We either run or
we attack.
There's a scientific term for this:
Fight
or flight.
It's instinct
We can't control it.
Or can we?

I first heard about the fight or flight nervous system response when I was in college classes. Tenth grade. I studied it extensively, wrote a paper on the phenomenon. I prided myself on the fact that I was a fighter, I stuck through the toughest of situations. When my mother was in Intensive Care, my senior year in high school, I was there. I was there until I had a seizure,  I was there. I was there until I had a panic attack a few days after the seizure. I did everything I needed to do.

Everything I needed to do, only without my heart. I had a shell. I cried, but it was enough of a wall to keep me from breaking down. I don't cry, I don't have breakdowns. Tears slip through, I stay closed off. Otherwise, I'm not sure I'd stop. And I'm not saying that to be dramatic. I think most of my friends know I tend to downplay the worst in my life, and don't ask for help until I either have to, or it's too late and the damage is done, and it's time to repair things. I want to break down, sometimes. But I…can't.

I get pissed when I get hurt. I scream until I'm blue in the face. I use every bit of foul language I know and then invent some. Twice, I've had to be held back from absolutely beating the hell out of someone. Mostly, it's words. I don't back down from a fight. I fight for what I want. I think.

But I hold back, I shut off. At the same time.
Fight or flight. Which is it? Which is better? Which is worse? And what, exactly, is worth fighting for?

It's sucked me in. Absolutely, completely, and totally consumed me. In what is probably a not-so-healthy way. It is, single-handedly, the ONE TV show that I have to watch, I have to know what's happening with who, who did what and where, and all the drama.

I feel like I personally know Derek and Meredith and Addison. I can give you all the details on that little love triangle. Oh, and this most current thing with Finn, McVet, too. Never forgetting McSteamy- Mark- either. There's Cristina and Burke, and I can probably detail every fight they've ever had. Izzie and Alex and Denny, and that damned cupcake, the beginning of the end. A simple cupcake.

Never, ever give me a cupcake as a surprise present.

Let's not forget the ten judy doll heads, the murderer who swallowed four razors and then a lightbulb to get out of solitary confinement for a few days and spent most of the time demanding mint chocolate chip ice cream, the standstill operation with Joe, the spelling bee champion, the man whose fiance left him because she 'wasn't strong enough', the woman with the massive tumor, and those damn 'hillbillys' that ended up touching everyone. Oh, and the Dead Baby Bike Race.

Then there's the Chief's surgery, Addison's poison oak in a …VERY uncomfortable place for females, Denny (and holy SHIT at that drama tonight!), Mark stitching up his own face to 'turn me on' (<- Cristina quote!), and Bailey giving birth and almost squeezing George's hand to the point of cutting off circulation. "Stop looking at my Va-jay-jay!" Oh, and the disgusting pus that covered Meredith. That was fun.

I. love. this. show. I read the writer's blogs whenever posted, I read the bar blog, and I read Debbie Does Seattle. I post pretty regularly on The Incision (love you all!), and freak out with everyone else after every single episode. Seriously, you know it's a damn good show if you freak out after EVERY episode and spend the rest of the week speculating about what'll happen next.

Seriously. Tonight's episode? SERIOUSLY?

I. love. this. show. To the point where it's going on my "likes" page in my college scrapbook. (Grey's Anatomy for Television, and Within Temptation for Music. That's all I'm putting in there. 'Tis special.) I know the actors, I know their names, and their emotions? Make me feel like my life is pretty damn sweet, which is an extreme accomplishment as of late.

Clearly, this season finale has made me write the entry I've been meaning to write. Because my heart absolutely stopped– apparently, along with Denny's and maybe even Burke's. I, along with every other poster at The Incision, is just waiting for tomorrow and thanking the kindness that is Shonda Rhimes not making us wait an entire week for this episode.

Now, off to do some writing exercises that I need to focus on. School outside of school- loving it.