The Week My Kittens Almost Died and I Didn’t Have to do it All
By: Jen Payne
Tags: Gender Equality, Cats, Partnerships, Family, Feminism

Sunday evening my partner burritoed Lil Fluff in his towel and I loaded the syringe. We had let them nap for a couple of hours but because they also needed more medicine, we wanted to get more food into them. They were only getting about 5 ml of food at a time, they couldn’t seem to take much more.

As we began the process of slowly pushing the food into Fluff's mouth and coaxing his throat to swallow it, something wonderful happened. Zeppeli came into the kitchen and crouched in front of the dry food bowl (this was the special digestively easy dry food from the vet). He stayed there for about 10 seconds and my partner and I held our breath. He leaned forward and took one small piece of food and we both nearly collapsed in joy.

Tears filled our eyes and we immediately agreed to stop our intervention for a bit and see what happened. We put Lil Fluff down and watched as he, too, sniffed at the dry food. Though it would be several more hours before all three had eaten some of the food, they all did before the night was over.

While Zeppeli nibbled a few more pieces, my partner and I sat on the kitchen floor and cried tears of joy. After Tipsy ate some on his own and began cleaning his face and paws, we were again overcome with happiness.

That night I went to bed feeling better than I had in days, I slept. My partner spent a few more hours in the living room keeping an eye on the kittens, but when he came to bed, he too slept better than he had all week.

The next morning I bounded into the bedroom to tell him, “The kittens ALL ate their breakfast!”

We’ve no idea what caused them all to stop eating, neither of the vets nor our tech friend can give us any really conclusive answer. All I know is that they were very, very sick and that it might have been the medicine, but I believe it was also our love, that brought them back to health.

Today, they are starting to fill out again after losing too much weight that week and they act as though nothing ever happened. They are wild and crazy and wonderful and I am so grateful that I know what it’s like to be a “cat person”.

What I learned

Our kittens had come pretty close to death, having not eaten from Monday evening until sometime late Saturday. It was an ugly, scary week and I can truly say, I am grateful for the time spent healing them and the lessons I learned doing it.

As I reflected on the week something occurred to me. I couldn’t remember who had done what. I remember my partner noticing they were trying to nurse on their mom, something they hadn’t done in quite a while. Or, maybe I noticed that and he put together that maybe they’d take a bottle or syringe.

I was unclear on who suggested calling the vet first. I didn’t know which of us had cleaned up all the messes, the vomit, the foam when there was nothing left for them to vomit, or watery diarrhea that they tried so hard to get into the litter boxes.

What about the rest of the stuff that had still needed doing? Who walked the dog? When did we eat dinner and how did the dishes get done? Did my kids finish their school work?

I suddenly realized that I didn’t know the answer to all those questions because it hadn’t been just me doing handling things. I wasn’t the only one worried or concerned or researching options or trying to figure it out. I didn’t have to put together a feeding or medication schedule and post it on the fridge because we talked it out together and kept track on the paper bag the meds came in. We took turns walking the dog, the kids and I did do school work and just like always, I cooked and he did dishes. Things got done and I hadn’t had to worry about any of it.

It wasn’t just the physical work, it was the mental load that I had not had to carry alone that made the biggest in my world that week. I was scared and I felt helpless, but I wasn’t overwhelmed and in the one moment I remember starting to feel that way, he put his arms around me and told me we’d get through it together.

And we did.

Thank you.