The Story of the Woodpile Kittens

Once upon a time, on or about March 26, 2013, a stray cat birthed three kittens in my father-in-law and mother-in-law's backyard.  My in-laws called the pound to capture the family of cats but Momma-cat eluded them.  The pound said if they took the babies without the mother they would euthanize them.  My in-laws decided to let the cats stay were they were, but Momma-cat had other plans.  After all the attention, not only from the pound but from my in-laws children and grandchildren, Momma-cat decided to move her young, and everything was well for awhile.

When the babies were old enough to venture from their hiding spot, under a woodpile in the same backyard, my family happened to be over visiting.  My husband whispered to me, "Want to see the kittens?  They are out in the backyard."  They were about four weeks old and little balls of hissing fur.  I couldn't help but pick one up and my husband did the same.  We looked at each other and my husband said, "These cats are messed up, look at their eyes."  Indeed, they had some terrible, weepy, puss filled eyes.  I said, "They are coming home with us."  And so they did, except for Momma-cat who, once again, made her escape.

From left to right: Joe, Stormy and Mittens the day we brought them home.

We only stayed home long enough to grab a blanket and a clean, small, empty litter box to carry them in.  I had an idea that I would bring the kittens to the PetSmart store and ask some advice to whoever was working the Humane Society's adoptions that day.  The Humane Society volunteer was very helpful and she was as concerned as me about these guys.  After helping clean their eyes in the bathroom sink she recommended I see if the vet at the store could fit us in that afternoon, she even offered to pay some of the vet bill.

The vet did have an opening and we waited for the appointment.  She took a look at the kittens and said they had very bad ulcers in all their eyes.  She said Joe looked the best out of the three, Stormy had an eye that had either ruptured or was likely a birth defect, and Mittens did have a ruptured eye.  She prescribed some medicine had gave me all the discounts they could for being a good Samaritan.  The vet recommend that I have Mittens put to sleep because a ruptured eye is very painful and very expensive to have removed.  I cried.

I spoke with the Human Society volunteer again to update her on the kitten's diagnosis.  She told me to do what I felt was best and what I was okay with, then she helped me get kitten food and milk supplement for them.  We took the kittens home and I gave all of them the medicine and eye drops that had been prescribed.  None of them liked the eye drops but they didn't seem to wince in pain when I put them in their eyes.  I decided not to put Mittens down for the moment and tried to figure out what to do next.

My decision was to wait and see if Mittens seemed bothered or in pain from the eye that was ruptured and to try to creat an online fundraiser to raise funds for these kittens.  I started by making a video of them.  A really horrible, unscripted video that I can't stand to listen to but it said what I needed to say.

Here's a close up of Mitten's eyes.  The one on the right is the good eye and she cannot close it all the way.  They were quite dirty kittens too.

Over the next few days, the kittens got quite comfortable with us.  Here's Mittens chasing my daughter.

Since Mittens was the kitten with the worst prognosis I may have babied her a bit.

I would hold her in my hands alot.

Sometimes she fell asleep.

Or, you know, did whatever.

Shortly after this I was able to catch Momma-cat.  It took two hours of waving a piece of chicken and calling sweetly to her.  Momma-cat was not happy to come live with us, she had been a stray for awhile and didn't trust people.  She would hide in the closet area of an empty bedroom I was keeping them in.  There was at least one kitten that was very happy to see her though.  Joe could stop rubbing her.  

After a couple weeks Momma-cat got used to us, even grew fond of us.  I took the kittens to my own vet and he prescribed more medicine and referred me to an animal eye specialist because he had not seen eyes like these before.  He did say the ulcers could be an outbreak of feline herpes which is very treatable. He also was not convinced that Joe had the best eyes.  Joe kept his eyes closed almost all of the time and his eyes were very hard to find when they were open leading us to believe he couldn't see at all.  He also had a very cute way of moving his head back and forth like Stevie Wonder when he was trying to listen.  Mittens, on the other hand, had the best looking eye in her good eye and the vet wasn't sure her bad eye was ruptured.  Very good news!  I called the specialist to get a quote on our visit and updated my fundraiser.  I posted this video at the time, they were 7 weeks old.   Although I did receive a few nice donations from people I wouldn't say the fundraising was a great success.  Regardless, I took the kittens to the specialist and after hearing the kittens' story the specialist's office gave me every discount they could, even sent one prescription to the pharmacy because it would be cheaper than to buy it from the specialist.  The diagnosis was that there were no ruptured eyes.  These kittens had genetically small eyes, they were missing part of their eyelids causing the fur above their eyes to scratch their retinas, their tear ducts were not working properly causing them to have intense dry eyes, and feline herpes that caused ulcers to form on their eyes.  He did not think Joe could see at all and he wasn't sure how much eyesight the other kittens had.  He said there was a surgery that could repair the kitten's eyelids but it was very expensive.  I would have started to cry again but the specialist then told me he expected they would still have a very high quality of life even without the surgery.  He said kittens are very adaptable and Joe had already adapted to being blind. All three kittens would need artificial tears, the kind you buy at the drug store for dry eyes, administered three to four times a day for the rest of their lives but that's it.  I could have kissed.  Would have too if it would have lowered the vet bill any They are now almost 12 weeks old.  I'm going to get their vaccinations soon and Momma has an appointment to go to no kill shelter.  I hate to see her go, she has grown really attached to me. But I had only talked my husband into keeping Mittens since we had bonded so well and because I recently had to put my sixteen year old cat to sleep due to cancer.  My kids have begged and pleaded to keep Stormy.  Somehow they got me on their side

All that's left is Joe, the blind kitten, to find a home for.  I'm hoping if I can put it off long enough that everyone will just forget about it.  

Wish me luck.