Recap: Friday, December 4, 2015

on December 4, 2015

LAPS:

Whiskey and Sambuca

There was a morning visit with the boys, with them out and mingling with each other. Suzanne also visited in the early afternoon. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to watch or record the visits and the cam has reset without any part of that DVR video being posted…so I have no updates. All I can say is that they seemed to get along fairly well with the supervised mingling, and they’ve swapped places — Whiskey is now out in the room and Sambuca is in the cage. (Seems a fair trade to go back and forth like that, until they’re friends enough to be loose together overnight.)

TinyKittens HQ:

Cassidy

Shelly temporarily diverted the Ringworm Romper Room stream (while the room was being cleaned) to give us an update on Cassidy. The culture results aren’t back yet; his stump is still leaking fluid. Shelly has been having weekly consultations with Dr. Marcellin-Little, and he’s happy with the progress so far — he says they should expect a change of up to four degrees in flexion per week, which is much less than the ten degrees or so that Shelly thought was expected and so she’s having to dial back her expectations. They still have over 100 degrees of flexion to gain/regain on each leg. The physiotherapy takes hours, including the prep, wrestling with an uncooperative patient, treat breaks, and all that. She showed what his new gear looks like — it’s a vest made out of what looks to be a neoprene, with straps that attach with velcro to bend and hold his knee in flexed position.(Reminds me of my carpal tunnel wrist brace.) Cassidy’s eye brows and whiskers are growing back and the white hairs on his back and legs are starting to grow out and come in black again.
(Shelly posted a copy of that video to the Ringworm Romper Room stream; you can view it at http://livestream.com/tinykittens/bells/videos/106225487.)

People for Happier Cats/TNR site:

General Notes

Per Shelly: “Snuggles will be administered today around 10:30am PT, 2pm, and throughout the evening, so don’t miss out!” And she wasn’t lying — the snuggles were plentiful all day long.
Gwen was at TKHQ doing a major disinfection clean of all of the rooms.

Holly and Comet

Note: Holly and Comet are currently only viewable on the TinyKitten VIP cam, which you can access for either a monthly or annual fee.

Shelly stopped by at around 10:30 to restart and reposition the VIP cam and wipe off the lens. She also put out more food and checked on Holly’s paws, which are doing well.
Suzanne visited at around 10:45, shortly after Shelly’s flyby visit, for a little snuggling and socializing. Comet is still reserved but Holly was climbing all over Suzanne’s lap and staying out in the open after just a few minutes — Holly even ate right beside Suzanne while being petted. Suzanne eventually pulled Comet into her lap for a cuddle.
Kimsies visited at around 14:00. There were snuggles and some great breakthroughs, including head bumps from Holly and majoring purring from both. Still lots of work ahead socializing both, but especially Comet. Still, they’re doing really great.
I must have missed it on-cam (or elsewhere), but someone on chat wrote that Comet is scheduled to be neutered on Tuesday.

Ringworm Romper Room with Jingle, Elf, Nicholas, and Noelle

Overnight notes: There was a lot of playing from all three larger kittens. Lots of trying to climb the big branch and the board in the nest area, only partially successfully. The nest cam was taken down again when Jingle took a flying leap over it at Nicholas, and the room cam was adjusted by kittens so that the nest was no longer visible. So, visually, it was a pretty quiet night.
Suzanne visited at around 12:00, after her visit with Holly and Comet. Noelle had a poop accident and had to be cleaned up — butt-bathed — in the bathroom. Suzanne fed and cuddled each of the kittens and cleaned the litter boxes. (Unfortunately, the first part of Suzanne’s visit is audio only as the nest cam was still down and the room cam wasn’t pointing at the nest at all. Suzanne set the nest cam back up as best she could — a little too high so probably one too many cans in the stack — part way through the visit and Shelly thankfully switched over to it for parts of the visit.)
Kimsies visited at around 15:00, after her visit with Holly and Comet. (Shelly switched the feed over to Cassidy in the middle of her visit, which is why my video embedded below starts after Shelly switched the feed back; Little Darling’s video in her section at the bottom of the page thankfully includes the pre-Cassidy-switchover portion of the visit.) There was much snuggling, some almost unbearable cuteness, and Kimsies took many videos and pictures that she posted to her Facebook page. (See her section near the bottom of this page.) Her visit with Elf was mostly off-cam so no screencap of that here. At the end of her visit, she brought in the 5-nest Kuranda cat tower.
Gwen visited a bit on cam while she finished cleaning the room. She replaced blankets, mopped the floor, set up a second food area, and did other various cleanup tasks while talking to the kittens.
Shelly visited just as Gwen was finishing up the room.
- Noelle is now 547 grams. Her temperature is 39.2 C. Her gums are still pretty pale — it’ll take some time before her body can re-establish the iron in her blood. Shelly gave her more fluids (by syringe, amidst much woe) and consulted with Dr. Ferguson via text; they decided to give her some metronidazole because of her diarrhea earlier in the day. Shelly also cleaned her ears.
- Nicholas is 1.112 kg. Shelly gave him meds, cleaned his ears, and put ringworm creme on his belly lesions.
- Jingle is 1.7 kg. She gave him meds and eye drops. His ears are looking better, but she gave them a cleaning anyway. He’s still really snuffly from the URI — after Shelly left, he had a major sneezing fit in the nest bin and you can hear him whistling as he breathes when he’s near the cam or sleeping.
- Elf I don’t think she managed to weigh. She gave her meds and cleaned out her ears a bit.
- I think the wall rodent wanted in on some of the TLC as it was particularly noisy.
- Before she left, Shelly moved the nest cam in front of the black nest bin and moved the room cam back out so we have a view of the nest/closet area and the nest bin. (I wasn’t reading, but I’m sure there was much rejoicing in chat.)
Shelly visited again at 22:45. She did a little more blacklighting. She thinks Nicholas might have persistent pupillary membranes in his eyes. (Several kittens that Shelly has fostered have had those and usually they aren’t a problem.) She gave Jingle his eye drops and some cuddles. Noelle’s temperature is normal (38.7 C); she’s still got a long way to go — she’ll need lots of time to rebuild her blood supply, muscles, and fat stores after all the parasites and fleas and starvation; the fact that she’s eating well is a good sign that she’s got a strong fighting spirit, but she’s likely not going to feel like playing for quite some time. Elf actually came out to eat right by Shelly’s leg, until she was startled — but she’s getting more and more confident and brave when humans come into the room. Everyone — Holly and Comet included — have made really good progress, especially considering Jingle and Holly just came in on Sunday and the others just came in on Wednesday night.