Five Cats and a Bad Back

 I ended up with six spots for Friday's clinic.  Four of those would be ones who were to be fixed the week before, when the clinic closed due to weather.   The fifth of those scheduled the week before, Diego, got fixed Monday, down in Brownsville.

So I'd had one then two spots for other cats.  I offered them to a trailer park woman from Lebanon.  She had a young female who showed up as a stray kitten and a boy.  

However, she only got the boy, in the end.  So I only had five cats to take.   I left early, with the five, then, after dropping them at the clinic to be fixed, drove to the park to feed the boys.  From there I came home, with roofers still making noise above me, loaded more traps, to go trap in Keizer for Sunday's FCCO clinic.

That was a big bust.  The lady had called me, 10:00 p.m. the night before, trying to cancel or postpone, basically because she wanted to feed them.  I thought I'd talked her into not feeding them but when I arrived up there, at noon instead of 1:00, because she claimed she sometimes fed them that early (she usually sleeps til 1:00 p.m. and is up half the night), I found food out everywhere.  She said it didn't matter she fed them because, she stated, very innocently, none of the cats were around.  She was telling me this as I watched two of her four fixed cats lounging on the porch and eating the food that was mounded out there, too as well as bowls out in the house and garage.  I glanced towards the door into the garage and saw two different cat faces appear at that cat door, wanting to come inside.  

Oh brother, I thought.  I don't know why I stayed anyhow, hoping for some dumb luck I guess, in catching even one of the unfixed ones.  I hate to think I wasted the previous trip up, to leave off the drop trap for her to feed under, and now this trip too.  So I faithfully tried for two hours, sat there hoping the unfixed ones would go under the drop trap to eat and it was when I was about to leave that she said that at least one, maybe two unfixed ones were in the garage, where the door was shut to the outside and so had no access to the drop trap I was watching.  

It was time to get the hell out of there.   And leave I did.  I left her and her caregiver the name of a local group, maybe they could help.  I called the FCCO from my car to cancel the appointments for Sunday.

I couldn't drive all the way home, because it was only an hour now til time to pick up cats at the clinic in Salem. Keizer, where I was at, is north of Salem.  I drove down to the clinic parking lot and sat there, in my car, to wait for the time to come I could pick them up and go home.  I was tired, in need of a bathroom and uncomfortable.

The clinic lost a lot of trees in the ice storm.  How many trees were lost throughout the state to the storm?  One can only imagine.

I had to move my seat forward, to accomodate the five cats plus the empty traps from the Keizer fiasco.  This put me feeling cramped forward and awkward, too close to the steering wheel and my right foot cocked back, at a sharp angle, on the gas pedal.  By the time I was halfway home my butt hurt.  Then my right leg began to hurt.  I couldn't wait to get home, then return the cats, and go to bed.  I'd be keeping the cat from KATA, for the weekend, since the KATA lady and her daughter had gone to the coast for the weekend.

Midnight, from Albany, was spayed Friday

Tiger, a young boy, from Albany, was also fixed

Buddy from Lebanon was neutered

Jakarta, a young tabby female, from KATA's Sweet Home volunteer, was spayed

Tundra, a brown tabby boy, from Lebanon, was neutered

I got home, prior to returning the cats, since I had three carriers from people I needed to add to the car, and take out some of the empty traps so they would fit.  I turned to get out of the car, and went into spasms of agony-sharp edgy lightning pain, shooting down my right leg from my lower back.    I thought it was a pinched nerve from the way I'd sat in the car driving from the clinic and that I could walk it out.  Instead it only became worse.   My back and right leg were on fire.  I was in agony.  Any movement triggered horrendous pain.

I called the various caretakers of the cats, who had just been fixed and were still in my car.  They came, one by one, to get the cats themselves, thank goodness. The lady from Lebanon with the little gray tabby boy cat, Buddy, carried the KATA cat in the trap into my bathroom for me.  I hated to ask her to do it.  The traps are awkward and heavy and she is only about a decade younger than I am.  I didn't want her to get hurt too.  By the time the women came for Midnight and Tiger, I was on the floor of the garage and sobbing from the pain.  I couldn't get up once I bent over and realized I might have to crawl.  I just wanted to go to bed.

When the cats were gone, I did go to bed, and slept well.  Lying flat, unless I moved a certain way, I was fine.  But sitting, turning, using the bathroom, sitting in most chairs, that didn't work out and mostly, I laid flat in bed.  I used ice packs and my heating pad, and took Aleve.  

Today was a little better but I had to stay in bed most of the day.  I was able to get up for a few minutes, to clean another litter box, now and then, and in that manner, got them all cleaned.  It was on one of my brief times out of bed I found Mops, dying, in a corner of the spare bedroom.

I'd heard a noise, a strange noise, like a coughing gurgling sound, repeated a couple of times and several of my cats were staring into the second bedroom.

I found Mops, laid out flat on the floor, moaning slightly.  I scooped him up, to lay on a blanket and heat pad, but he groaned when I did that, and that's when I thought he's fallen. I wasn't sure, however, what was wrong.  He was dead within ten minutes.  My beautiful Mops.

The cat runs around the house, on the wall, are a blessing and a curse.  Sometimes the cats fall off of them, if rushing, or being chased by another cat or if they are in a panic, over noise.  They are only six feet off the floor but my older cats are not physcially equipped to handle a six foot fall.

Mops was an elderly bad boy here, feral, a bully and now about 13 years old.  He had been in good health, at least so I thought, outside of he had to have most teeth pulled over the years.   Two nights earlier he'd seemed fine, was drinking and eating, sleeping in his usual place. Yesterday, I didn't even see him because I was gone all day and when I got home, I couldn't walk let alone do my usual cat check.   But I had seen him earlier in the morning.  He seemed, tired, sleepy, but ok. He'd died so suddenly.  I suspect he fell, in a panic over the roofing noise, or had a heart event.  The roofing noise terrified most of my cats. 

I was unable to bury my kitty Mops due to my back injury.   I was grateful to my friend for stepping in to do that for me.  She took him out to her hazelnut orchard and laid him to rest there.

I did not expect Mops would be the next to die here, of my old kitties.  I didn't expect Cougie to get jaw cancer either.  Or me to suddenly, with no apparent reason other than exhaustion, stress and awkward car seat position, end up in stifling pain and unable to walk.    Being alive right now is all we know.  The next second, we don't know what is going to be the reality.

So long Mops.  You were such a bad boy.  Such a bully to the other cats.  He even was mean to his sister, Buffy, who also isn't that nice to other cats.  I thought she would go before him.  She's had a couple of seizures and looks her age.    But Mops, even in death, looked vibrant and healthy.  

So long Mops