Friday, March 22, 2013

The Six Stages of Sleepiness

I am utterly exhausted this week, and this time I don't get to blame my insomnia.  When I get a chance to sleep, I actually have been sleeping quite well the last few days.  The reason that I am not getting a chance to sleep though is because I am helping a friend by fostering two baby kittens.
The story (with some details left out for the squeamish) is that the mommy cat gave birth to the two babies on Sunday (St. Pattie's Day) and the next day when my friend woke up the mom was having some medical complications due to the birth, and needed to be rushed to the veterinarian for surgery.

Tiny babies at 2 days old.
Now my friend lives alone and works a lot of hours between her jobs. She knew that it would be hard for her to get the kittens bottle fed every 1-2 hours like they will need to be for at least another week now.  So my friend put out a call for help over facebook.

I have a some experience bottle raising kittens. So naturally I offered to take the kittens, and sacrifice any chance I'm going to have at getting more than a few hours a sleep at a time until the kittens are bigger.

The kittens are now 5 days old, and unfortunately there have been some complications.  The black kitten is doing OK, though it squiggles a lot and does not like to be fed with the medicine syringe, and they are still too small for the bottle right now.  I would feel better if I could get more formula in them each feeding, and I know they should be gaining more weight than they are, but the black one is strong, and that makes me hopeful.  I will really feel better as soon as their eyes are open.

The orange kitten is the one that really worries me.  There was a tiny sore on its paw when my friend brought them over to me, apparently a piece of the bedding they were born in had a loose string and it got wrapped around the kittens toe.  The veterinarian removed the string and cleaned it, but it still became infected.  We're doing everything we can, but sadly, when they are this small, there isn't much that can be done.  The orange kitten is still eating, and getting a couple of drops of antibiotics every day.  For me and my husband, everyday he makes it is another small victory.

I read somewhere that bottle raising baby animals is both rewarding and heartbreaking at the same time.

More to come after they open their eyes.

*Updates:
  • Monday, March 25, 2013 I took the little orange kitten to the vet and it was determined that the best and kindest option was euthanasia.  Between the infection in its paw and getting pneumonia, there just wan't any hope the kitten would make it.
  • Sunday, March 31, 2013 After putting the black kitten down after a feeding the night before, I went in to check on it at 1:00 a.m. to find that it had passed away.  We are not sure why or what happened, just that the kitten never seemed to be in any pain and that its death was sudden.  A sad ending to this story, but unfortunately, the odds were always against us succeeding.


Thursday, March 7, 2013

Profile Image Courtesy Of...

I finally got a profile picture uploaded.  I commissioned the image on fiverr.com. from creator Hironon.  I have to say I'm very pleased with the image, and it's an accurate representation of me.

In case you aren't familiar with fiverr, it's a site where you can buy and sell services/goods for $5.  The site keeps $1 and pays $4 to the seller.  If you have some sort of service that can be rendered over the internet, it can be a great way to make a little extra money.

I'm looking more into how well it would work for selling physical items.  I'm considering using it to list and sell some of my smallest knitted toys. Like these adorable turtles I make.
As soon as I figure out some more of the logistics, I'll update this post with a link if I decide to sell them there.