Some Bad... and Some Good News
Bea sleeping on my sister's lap. The scarf around her neck is not some cruel accessory but a way of stopping her from scratching her stitches. She likes it if you put your legs up so that she has more room to stretch - spoiled cat!
I hate to kill the mood and report bad news, but I need to get it off my chest. You've all heard of my cat, Bea's, tumultuous past few months. She's never been away from the vet for more than 6 weeks. She's had 2 operations on her ear, one on her shoulder, one on her cheek and various other minor procedures. She's overcome all this, but she's old, probably older than we realised - the previous owners knew of her existence for 4 years, we've had her for a year and a half, but we're sure that she's more than 11 years old, especially judging from the condition of her teeth. In any case she probably spent the first half of her life in the wild, and wild cats don't live as long as domestic ones. Well, we've had the worst confirmed - she has a very rare form of cancer in cats - salivary cancer, so rare that the vet had to research it because he'd never seen it before. Well, by the time we discovered it, it had spread to her lungs. So unfortunately there's no hope for her. They do perform chemotherapy on cats, but never anything that will make them feel sick, because a cat won't understand that the treatment is to make them feel better.
In many ways I'm glad that we found out now, because at least we won't have the immense shock of bringing a sick cat to the vet and then have them die before us on the operating table, which is what happened to our other cat, Kitty, last August. At least we can make her last few months as comfortable as possible. Cats are resiliant creatures and I'm sure she'll survive at least another 2-3 months. Because her appetite is as healthy as always, she's lost no weight, and she's still in brilliant mood. She deserves a happy few months, because she's obviously been mistreated in the past. Besides, she's the sweetest cat I have ever met. Bea started out as a scaredy cat but now she is the most loving, affectionate cat to all family members, not just one. My Mum says she's the most affectionate cat she ever had - and she had plenty of cats in her youth, before her cat allergies developped.
So that's the bad news, but we also have some good news. I've told you that for whatever bizarre reason, my mother's allergic reactions to our last 2 cats (who were related) were limited. And despite the fact that Kitty was never kind to Bea and only just tolerated her (which I guess in Kitty's way was the closest thing to loving another cat because she despised and fought with all other cats), Bea was still somewhat lonely after Kitty died. So a few months ago we decided to get a kitten, a female kitten, because that was the only way to guarantee she'd get along with the cat. An adult cat would be too risky to introduce to our home, especially with quite a submissive cat like Bea. Knowing that Siberian cats are hypo-allergenic (that most people with cat allergies do not react to them) we set out to find a Siberian cat breeder.
Well, Siberian cats have only been exported since the late 1980s and so are quite difficult to find. As far as we know there are no Siberian breeders in Ireland. But there are a few in the UK, and my mother sent a deposit to one breeder so that she could reserve a female kitten from the next litter. Well one of the breeder's cats had a litter of 6 healthy kittens on April 1 - 2 girls and 4 boys. 3 weeks later she sent us photos of our kitten.
Kitten at 3 and 4 weeks
She is adorable! I've never had a kitten before! My friends think I'm crazy for being so excited but I guess it's the little girl in me who never got a kitten when she was little. We won't get her until she's 12 weeks old, because the breeder likes to make sure that they're fully weaned before she gives them away. In July we'll have to take a ferry to Wales and then drive halfway across the UK to pick her up. But it'll be worth it. And fortunately there's no problem bringing pets between Ireland and the UK. That's certainly something to look forward to. I know that the kitten was initially to keep Bea company, but at least not it'll be able to keep us company after Bea is gone, because having Bea made dealing with the loss of Kitty so much easier.
Kitten in the middle with her brothers and sisters at 5 weeks
Oh and we can't agree on a name for the kitten so any suggestions are welcome!
Kitten at 5 weeks
EDIT: And I almost forgot to mention that you can view all the photos of the kitten and her family in my scrapbook
http://pics.livejournal.com/ali_babble/gallery/00018xap