Four little kittens lost their mommy and they began to cry!

Today Favorite Maid came to me and said that her cat Romina, who was spayed on Tuesday, had a marble size lump below her incision. From what I thought she described, it didn’t sound too serious, but I told her I would call the vet and see what she recommended. Dr. Sellers didn’t answer her phone the first few times, so Esperando and I went off tile shopping for Casa Abeja. This took several hours of looking at and purchasing tiles. When we got back to Casa Abeja the tile guys were there and we showed them what we bought, and starting discussing layouts and getting their ideas for the kitchen and the bathroom.

Right in the middle of all this brainstorming, I heard the mewing of a tiny kitten. A lightening bolt struck, and I suddenly knew that Penelope had given birth to kittens that I had no knowledge existed until this very moment. I hear kittens, I said, racing away from the tile meeting and following the squeaky mewing. As I began to search for them, I calculated they had been abandoned for five days since last Tuesday when we took Penelope in to be put to sleep. I followed the sound of the mewing and sure enough there were four tiny white kittens in an abandoned yard, so tiny, so trembly, so covered with fleas, so hungry, and way too young to be afraid of me. Oh my, four more kittens. I wonder if this is what you feel like when you find out you’re going to have quadruplets?

I ran back into the house and grabbed the box we had brought the tile in and said to Esperando, “I just found Penelope’s four kittens.” We entered the abandoned junk-filled yard, so full of trash, and in the corner by a stash of rotting planks these poor tiny things had crept out into the open from their little den. Obviously they were starving. When they saw us they all started to mew together. Both of us gathered them up, and I took them down to the guesthouse and in a daze, poured some milk in a saucer hoping that it wasn’t too late to save them—four more kittens. Three of them seemed clueless but the fourth climbed all the way into the saucer and began to drink. The maid grabbed up one clueless kitten and with a syringe began to put milk in its mouth, and so on with the next until they were all eating voluntarily. What am I going to do with four more kittens—someday cats? This time when I called, I got a hold of Lorraine and she told me to bring them down to see her. Mike and I discussed maybe having the kittens put down, but decided to wait and see what Lorraine thought about their chances for survival.

When we got to Mulege she looked the kittens over and called one of her volunteers to come help her manage the kittens so that she could attend to Romina. It turned out the cat would need to be reopened because she had either herniated or had an abcess. When I got outside the kittens were gathered around a gruel of water and canned dog food, scarfing it down again. They had serious flea issues and were anemic from loss of blood. Lorraine agreed to keep the animals overnight since we didn’t have the time to stay as Esperando was working.

Later that afternoon Lorraine called, it seems Romina had developed a very large sterile abcess from an allergy to the suture thread, but would be fine. The kittens had all been washed, were clean and sweet and now we think all of them have been spoken for! Gosh what a hot commodity. What exciting news! Hallelujah!