Foreacre Fur Family

Lorcan is up *over* 100 grams since this time last week (from 426g at intake on 6/10, to 399g on 6/16 (mid-illness), to 545g today!)!
We're so relieved we could cry.

He looks a little leggy in this photo, which means despite the severity of his illness he's been GROWING, and peep the belly - it's coming back! Also, forgive the grubbiness around the edges - rule number one with sick cats: don't bathe them (water cools them, and young kittens can struggle to regulate their body temp - sick kittens really can't afford to be chilled)!

Lorcan has been happily bathing himself in his food as he eats it, but "better" isn't the same as "healthy", so we've been giving him wipe baths in lieu of a traditional water + soap submersion bath. But, as evidenced by this sticky photo, baby wipes ≠ proper bath. We'll give him a proper one soon. 🛁

Back to the tears of relief...we have no time for them! Now that Lorcan is out of the woods, while we heal his gut and let him eat his heart out on probiotics and easy-to-digest foods, we're tackling the area around his kennel enclosure with deep and thorough 🫧disinfecting🫧. We've done some research and found that coccidia needs nuclear-levels of detonation to get it out of the environment, and since coccidia bowel movements can be rather, erm...💩explosive💩... we want to make sure we eliminate any traces of coccidia oocysts.

Coccidia facts:
⚠️ cats can continue to shed coccidia oocysts (which means they can be *contagious*!) in their f***s for as long as two weeks after treatment
⚠️ can live in the environment for up to one year
⚠️ is resistant to common disinfectants
⚠️ research indicates it is becoming resistant to Rescue (pet-safe/pet-specific disinfectant that eliminates Panleukopenia aka Distemper)
⚠️ CAN be eliminated utilizing bleach, hot water, and steam

So while Lorcan continues to go to town on food (and playtime, and food/play comas in between), we'll be going to town with bleach and hot water!

Happy Father's Day to ALL the fathers, but especially to Mr. FFF, Daniel Foreacre, who is always there for us, with love, emotional support (and sometimes monetary, for those urgent crises when there isn't time to fundraise -- we again thank you for that time you handed us a credit card less than 24 hours after paying off *three* of them after the last round of medical emergencies!🫣), and to give the kittens extra cuddles. We couldn't do this without your support! We love you - Kepner aka your Biggie Smolz most of all!

All the fathers from all walks of life give kids and fur kids the love and enrichment they need - thank you for being there for them. We love and appreciate you! We hope you enjoy your special day! 💗🐾

We have been SO busy keeping Lorcan alive we completely forgot to take all the name suggestions for the Thumbs, put them in a name generator, and draw names! We will do that on Sunday and get names for them!

P.S. Lorcan would say hello, but he is too busy eating!

Lorcan lost 1.5 ounces during his battle with coccidia. To put that in the perspective, that's 10% of his body weight, which is a lot when you're only 4 weeks old! He was up to 440 grams and is now down to 399. 💔

Fortunately we were also able to add albon to the medication arsenal, and he is a lot feistier today (he had his loading dose last night and just got his second a few minutes ago) and has a better appetite, and is also now urinating, which means the output has slowed enough that his body now has enough liquid coming in, via his own organic intake and what we're giving him through subcutaneous fluids, to excrete excess through urine.

🤞🤞🤞

He doesn't know that we keep waking him up because we have to, because if we just let him sleep he would slip away.

He doesn't know that we keep giving him syringes of medicine, because we have to.

He doesn't know that we keep giving him gooey dollops of medication on his tongue, because we have to.

He doesn't know that we keep giving him painful injections of fluids behind his neck, because we have to.

He doesn't know that he was dying, and we wouldn't let him die without trying everything we could, because we have to.

He doesn't know how close he came to dying yesterday, but we do.

All he knows is that he doesn't feel good and he was so sleepy and he just wanted to close his eyes and keep them closed, but we kept coming with syringes and liquids and pills and we wouldn't let him close his eyes and go to sleep and just die.

But he's alive, and today he's feeling feisty enough to fight back when we give him subcutaneous fluids, and to give us dirty looks afterwards. And that's okay - we're glad he has the strength to fight back and beam looks of hate at us. Keep beaming them. We would rather see the energy to hate us than no energy at all. 💔

We've got you, Lorcan.

Hang in there. Keep fighting, and we will keep fighting for you. ✊

Thank you so, so much for the birthday wishes! In addition to all of you wonderful humans and all of your wonderful gifts of cat rescue supplies, Lorcan gave me the gift of giardia! 🫩

Fortunately for him, half a decade of cat rescue has given us the gift of insight and quick recognition (aka "oh $hit"), so we quickly recognized he was not gaining weight (at his age he should be putting on at least 10 grams per day, but instead he held steady for 3 days in a row), has had a poor appetite, and has been fussy (probably because his belly hurts) with messy bowel movements, and giardia has distinct color and texture to look for.

We are 36 hours into treatment and already Lorcan's appetite is better: we woke up to one of his little bowls being completely empty! He isn't too happy being poked and prodded - in addition to being medicated, we are also treating him with Fading Kitten Syndrome, because we take no chances when it comes to a sick and underweight three week old kitten - so that means he's getting subcutaneous fluids, corn syrup on his gums, calorie-dense gels on his tongue, rich slurries to eat, etc, all around the clock. We let him (and ourselves) rest as much as we can but we also follow a strict schedule to make sure he stays hydrated and energized as well as medicated so he has the best possible chance at recovery and survival. That empty bowl is a sign that his immune system is responding to the medication and fighting back! ✊

This also means we are doing a lot of cleaning, disinfecting, and laundry. We are tearing down his enclosures (he gets rotated between the enclosure in our foster room and a smaller one in my (Jenn) office so that he is never alone except overnight when the humans are sleeping) multiple times a day so that we can keep things as clean and sanitized as possible. We're very grateful for the donations of laundry detergent, bleach, all-purpose cleanser, and Rescue (this is a pet-safe disinfectant that kills bacteria and viruses), and spray bottles to utilize the Rescue in! Deities knows we use all of these things, and a lot of them! Whenever we have a litter of kittens and or an outbreak we end up doing one to two loads of laundry a day - right now between Janus, the Thumbs, Sundance, and Lorcan, we're doing two loads a day, and that is with a very large front-load washer. The trash bags and disposable pee-pads as well as the washable ones are also often reached for and we are very appreciative of those, too! Thank you so, so much. Cleaning products are definitely items that are underappreciated but so often used in rescue. Thank you for ensuring we have everything we need. 🫧

We just took another peek at Lorcan and he's drinking some of his KMR - seeing him regain his appetite is such a relief, because this already isn't "just" worms (although regular intestinal worms are also bad, because they steal nutrients, irritate the intestines, cause diarrhea and vomiting, and in rare cases can cause perforations) - giardia and coccidia can both be become very deadly, very quickly. Imagine dysentery - that is what young kittens go through if they contract coccidia or giardia but don't receive treatment for it. 💔

Today is my (Jenn) 42nd birthday!

June 13th is a hard, painful day for me because of the deaths that have happened so close to this date:
[2009] my grandfather died two days before my 25th birthday
[2022] my father died two weeks before my 38th birthday
[2024] my mother died five days before my 40th birthday.

But I'm trying to put a positive spin on this day, and rather than make it about myself and the very bittersweet feelings I have about June 13th, I'd much rather make it about cats - the cats I've helped, the cats I'm currently helping, and the cats I've yet to help.

In lieu of any birthday wishes or gifts, I'd be very appreciative of any type of support for our rescue! Our Amazon wishlist has an extensive selection (it's on the to-do list to organize it into smaller categorized mini-lists) of both needs and wants to help us help cats. 🧁🎁💗🐾🐈

Any and all contributions go directly to help FFF help upwards of 75 stray cats (per *year*!) heal physically and emotionally so that they can go on to live their best lives with purrever families.

Amazon wishlist: http://bit.ly/fffwishlist

Thank you!

💕 Jenn of Foreacre Fur Family