The Tragedies and The Triumphs

First I'll say 14 more cats got fixed yesterday.  At two clinics.

7 were fixed at Heartland Humane in Corvallis.  These fixes don't come cheap.  The two Happy Cat Club, my nonprofit, paid for, cost $120, for example.  These were two more girls from the Tangent barn, among 8 orange teenagers they have in their house and want to find homes for, but first they had to be tamed and fixed.   Now all 8 are fixed, with these last two, and they have found a home for one of the 8.  They still have seven kittens trapped in the ceiling of the shop, who will need fixed.

I wrote a letter to the editor two weeks ago, seeking donations to pad the cat fix fund, but it only resulted in about 8 more requests for large amounts of help.  Not a single donation.  It's tough around here.  I tried to make the case its a good investment,  What better investment is there, really, if you want to donate to help animals than to spay neuter, which stops the problem at its start.  Why pay to house, fix, feed, treat 15 kittens in one summer when $40 will fix the female and the male who produced them?  Why not target the source, instead of paying huge bucks later to deal with the aftermath?  If we want to take it even further, why not start fining people who let their cats breed and let that money help pay to clean up what they've caused, in suffering.

The five orange bottle babes, from the wall in the Tangent barn, went to a Brownsville woman to bottle feed and raise. They will come back to me too, and I hope to find a rescue to take them.  She'll feed them til they are eating on their own.  They have predator issues there, where they live, have lost six cats in two weeks in fact.  The orange kittens would be gobbled up if they lived there.  They let their cats free roam.  So we agreed they will come back here and find other home options, hopefully with people who  will keep them inside and safe from Oregon's immense predator population.

Orange cats stand out like glowing neon lights to predators.  Predators come in all sizes here, from birds of prey, who operate night and day, to foxes, bobcats, coyotes and cougars.  Dogs in the cities kill scores of cats.  As do the most prolific and deadly of predators--cars. 

If you want your cats safe, fix them and keep them safe--contained on your own property.

Anyhow, five more semi feral kittens from Brownsville also were fixed yesterday at Heartland.  They both transported them to Heartland and paid the bill for their fixes.  Feral package fixes there are $40 each.  And then the seven tabbies, most of them girls, were fixed up in Salem.  Spice I named the first one, in the photo below.

Pumpkin, another orange tabby girl

Cinnamon, the adult brown tabby female, fixed yesterday, lactating, so there's likely another litter out there

Peanut, the brown tabby male teen, fixed yesterday 

Cashew, a brown tabby female teen

Chai, another beautiful teen girl

Nutmeg, a teen girl fixed yesterday

Pistachio, a teen girl too

Rusty, the big likable male fixed yesterday

The landlady at the Lebanon property ran an ad to try to find barn homes for at least the teens, since the renter is moving, who has fed them, but in the end, only two people actually expressed interest and one of those bailed last minute. So two of the teens, Chai and Peanut, went to a barn home last night. I'm not sure who is luckier, those two, who will have a hard time adjusting then face cars and predation there, or the three teens who have to return. I had to return the adult lactating female last night, since she likely has a new litter out in the berry vines. It's sad all around, when people feed the cats, then move and there's no one left to do that, and when they don't get them fixed immediately to avoid producing more unwanted cats.

 The good thing however is 14 cats were fixed yesterday. Also, Dagwood, one of the three teens from Hill street, the one I drove to Wilsonville a week ago, to hand over to a Portland rescue, is already fixed and in a home. The girls, still here, his sisters, are now mostly over the diarrhea, after I found out what they had and how to fix it from the rescue who took Dagwood. They will get fixed next week.

I'm frustrated with my dental care.  I get fake alerts that I have an appointment coming up.  This is frequent.  This morning I get alert texts and emails.  Yet I have no appointment until December.  Since the office moved again and changed to Gentle Dental, I've had trouble.   Last January, when I was supposed to get a yearly exam and cleaning, I got no exam, just told I needed a tooth pulled, which sent me down a rabbit hole.  I'd lost another filling, which I was sure came off my canine and so thought they were telling me I had to have that pulled, and that would show.  I'd start looking toothless with a missing canine, when I smile.

A friend paid for a second opinion at her dentist, who said the tooth could possibly be crowned, but also found two cavities.  I had no money for a crown and finally got the tooth pulled at another Gentle Dental office, waiting almost two hours past my appointment time.  During those two hours, the reception desk did not make any overtures to tell me what was going on, or why I had to wait so long past a fixed appointment.   I finally asked and was told a room was being prepared but the receptionist was rude.   I was not sure whether it is normal to wait two hours beyond appointment time or not.  I don't have that much to go on.  Other waiting room people told me I needed to check with the receptionist that maybe the dentist had left or something.   I finally got the tooth pulled.  The dentist mentioned the cavity in the tooth next to it.

Another friend then  offered to pay for those two cavities to be filled at her dentist, where she was trying to get a fourth set of dentures made, since the others hadn't fit at all.  That dentist, after taking too many xrays, said I had no cavities at all.  How could that be?  I was very confused. By now I had begun to believe that dentistry has become a big scam operation.

Then I got alerts by text and email in late July from Gentle Dental that my appointment was coming up.  I had no appointment, but I called and told them I had cavities.   So they let me come in, under insurance, but it took three weeks to get in.    So they xrayed again and said I had two cavities but they couldn't fill them til one in late December and one in mid January.

The months of waiting to get them filled don't set well with my OCD.  Nor with my fear of losing all my teeth.   I have several upper teeth missing now with few left for chewing.

I don't know what to do, however, other than wait it out. 

They claim I need two crowns.  I got another fake alert the next month from their text, email system so I called them up again, thinking maybe since I'm on their cancellation list they had a cancellation, but they didn't.  But I did try to tell them at that time I had secured a loan for one crown.  I knew crown prep takes much longer than filling a cavity, so expected to be told my appointment would be shifted.  Instead the woman told me they could do it at the same time.  I don't think that's correct, however.

Now another fake alert today, about some upcoming appointment I don't have.  The office was first Affordable Dental.  I had no problems then.  Then they moved and called it Smile Keepers and I had no problems then.  Now they have moved again and now its Gentle Dental and I have had nothing but problems.

Since the staff are largely the same, as when the office was in a different place and under different corporate name, and then I could get cavities filled in timely manner, I think the real problem may be that new corporate name they're under.

I think to myself I'm lucky to have any coverage at all.  My insurance covers exams once a year, extractions and fillings.  No root canals, crowns, bridges, none of that.  For that, you need to come up with huge money.  In fact, they quoted a price for two crowns with a bridge for two of my missing teeth, as almost twice what this old car I have cost.   It's impossible!    I will soon be toothless.