Turkish Muse

Luck Be A Lady

I was online today checking my email when a message popped up from an old friend of mine from my Wichita days, which, by this point, are about five years behind me. This is a friend who has stuck it out in newspapers in the years since I hightailed it out of that industry, gotten a master's degree and is now writing a novel and looking for work as a teacher. So you could say she's been busy since I last saw her.

She mentioned that she liked reading my blog and I immediately confessed that I have gotten "very very lazy" with Turkish Muse and, shamefully, writing in general. 

Her response was immediate and simple: "Get unlazy".

And I thought, "Right. It's as simple as that."

Get unlazy. I've already started getting unlazy in other aspects of my life, so why not here? If I can get up every morning at 7 and half an hour later be doing jumping jacks and push-ups there's no reason I can't write 500 887 words. Right?

And so I promised my friend that I would write something today, something she could read while she was at work and in need of a break. And suddenly it seemed like there was everything to write about and yet nothing at all. There are so many stories I haven't told you, and it's hard to discern where exactly to begin. 

So perhaps it'd be best to start with where we are now and what we're doing and move on from there. Shall we?

For starters, Jeff and I are still in Izmir and we will be here for the foreseeable future. Life got in the way of my big plans, and I am, at long, long last, finally okay with that. The long and the short of it is: at some point you just have to realise what you've got, accept it and move on. 

When we first moved to Turkey, we said we'd stay anywhere from five to 10 years, and we're quickly approaching the five-year mark. I do think we'll stay here for a few more years, but the specific length of time will be determined by various things, including how high the AKP raises the tax on English gin and if Romney is elected President of the US.

In any event, we're here in Turkey, still making a life for ourselves, still trying to enjoy this country and the world at large as best we can. And as we've decided not to move to Istanbul this year, we'll be spending the money we would have spent hiring someone to drive us 7 hours with 5 screaming cats by celebrating my 30th birthday in October in Paris. So I think it's somewhat of a fair trade, yes? Kind of.

But I did promise my friend a story and this isn't much of one, is it? So let me continue the story of "The Cat Who Came Back", which I first told you about way back last July. If you haven't read the story or need a refresher, please go back and read part the first.

Go on. I'll wait.

Okay. So. Lucky remained in our guest room for about three weeks while we nursed her back to health. Although the vet said she was healthy enough to be reintroduced to the outside world as soon as I brought her home, I didn't believe him a) because he's an asshole and b) she still looked sick enough that I didn't even want her around my own cats, let alone around other sick street cats.

For three weeks, I snuck into the guest room, wrangled her out from behind the bed where she hid from her thrice-daily antibiotics and the antiseptic I had to squirt in her mouth to clean her jaw wound. It wasn't an easy task as she was still incredibly feral and there were many times I threw up my hands in frustration.

Eventually, though, she did recuperate, and I put her back outside. I couldn't keep her, I reasoned, and nobody had come forward to take her, so out she went. 

That didn't last long, however, as not a week later, her infection came back and she was raging sick again. This time I took her to my own vet, a wonderful man who understands the value of life and not just his bottom line. More injections. More daily antibiotics. More serum.

It went on like this for months. We would solve one health issue only to have another reappear in a different location. Once we cleared her lung infection, her jaw -- which the first vet had so clumsily stitched -- needed surgery. Then her body started producing open sores, the likes of which I'd never seen before, which eventually left two bald patches on her back.

But somewhere along the way she stopped running, stopping hiding behind the guest bed and stopped trying to claw my eyes out when I entered a room. Slowly, she warmed up to us. She started sleeping in our bed, hanging out with us while we watched tv and made fast friends with Frankie and Phoenix.

And one day, without even realizing about it, she was ours.

And so we renamed her Lady -- Lucky was never a forever name anyway -- and she is now the fifth feline member of our family.

 

The Cat Who Came Back

It was nighttime when I first saw her. In the near darkness – the street lamp was out, again – her all-black fur blended into the night and all I could see was her small shape moving hesitantly toward me.

“Do you want something to eat?” I asked. “Here,” I said, dumping the dry cat food in front of her nose. “You have something to eat. There’s some water over there too.” I gestured to the empty yogurt container I had recently filled.

The cat sniffed the food and backed away. Not hungry, I thought. Sometimes street cats aren’t hungry, strange as it may seem.

The next day the kitten had crossed the street and entered our garden, or, rather, the overgrown patch of ground behind the neighboring municipal health clinic that happens to border our apartment building’s parking area. Nobody ever comes by to mow the grass or cut down the brush so it is now home to about a dozen or so cats that I feed and water daily.

The kitten was sitting in the middle of the driveway, a long stretch of concrete just wide enough for a single car to drive down. I gasped when I saw her and instinctively looked away. She cried, walked towards me and cried again.

“Help me,” she said.

The kitten’s nose and eyes were seeping green mucus and her matted, thin fur was prickled with burs and grasses that she wasn’t able to clean off. I wondered if she could even see or smell given what must have been an upper-respiratory infection raging through her body. And then I noticed her jaw, the slight drooping on the right side, the teeth jutting out at an angle, the hole where skin and fur should have been.

She cried at me again, her jaw aching at having to open to get the weak sound out.

I turned away from the kitten. My instinct was to pick her up and rush her to the vet, but I hesitated. I’d done that so many times, lost so many cats teetering on the edge of death, that I didn’t know if I could do it again. After the last time, I told myself, “This is nature. This is how the world works. Shit happens. And you can’t save them all.”

I went inside, having put down some fresh water and food for the cats.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about the kitten. The next morning, there she was, waiting for me. “Please,” she said.

A friend, one who is much more knowledgeable about cats than I, came by and said that the kitten had to go to the vet. There was no way she’d make it otherwise, even if I force fed her antibiotics. The only vet open on a Sunday, unfortunately, was the one vet I can’t stand, the only vet I’ve ever met who cares more about his business’s bottom line than about helping animals.

But there was no choice. I was in it now. The cat had asked me for help, and I just – oh I had to give it. How can one not? How can a human being stare suffering in the face and do nothing?

An x-ray showed that the kitten’s jaw was, in fact, not broken, leading us to believe that several doses of antibiotics could clear up the infection eating away at her body and causing her mouth to fall apart.

On Sunday, we left the kitten at the vet and crossed our fingers. Let’s hope she pulls through, we said.

That night, I fretted at home about the cat, about the vet who put us off at first because he didn’t want to take the kitten in, about the asshole across the street who neglected to have his cat fixed and then dumped the kittens she bore into the street. I cursed every other person who walked by that kitten and refused to help it, who said, “not me, not today”.

That night, standing on my balcony watching other, healthier kittens play in the street, I watched two women walk by and saw one yell at them, swing her hand towards them. I yelled angry, inappropriate things in Turkish down into the street.

In the morning, I steeled myself for the worst, that the kitten had died in the night, or worse, that she was lying in a pool of her own vomit or piss, neglected by the very vet who was supposed to be taking care of her.

At the vet, they brought the kitten to me and I saw her eyes for the first time and they were beautiful, big black eyes. And she was standing, something she hadn’t been able to do the day before. And her voice was stronger and she talked to me and the abscess in her jaw looked a little less red and raw.

She wasn’t out of the woods yet, that much I knew, but oh what a difference 24 hours makes! What a miracle antibiotics are! How much stronger her voice, her legs, how much clearer her eyes!

I opened the door to the carrier and reached my hand inside. The kitten came forward, head bowed low so I could pet her.

I bent my head toward her and spoke softly. “You did the right thing by finding me. I’m sorry I hesitated. But I’m going to take care of you now.”

The kitten nestled her head into my cupped hand and purred.

 

After about two weeks of antibiotics, minor surgery on her face, and plenty of water, food and vitamins, the kitten – whom I’ve temporarily named Lucky (I think she deserves a nicer name than that, one more indicative of her personality) – is doing much better. Unfortunately, I have not found a permanent home for her and she is now in my guest room while I attempt to find her full-time parents. If you’re interested in adopting her, please send me an email to barbara@turkishmuse.com. I'm happy to bring her to you anywhere in Turkey!

The Fun Cat

When Jeff and I travel, we talk often about our cats. It's a weird thing, I know, to be on a bus trip and to say to your husband, "What do you think Andy is doing right now?" and he says, "I bet he's sleeping between the pillows on the bed."

The truth is, we adore our cats and when we're not with them we often wonder what they're doing. We don't worry about them, per se; we just wonder whether or not Phoenix has eaten too much food again and thrown up on the kitchen floor and whether Frankie has managed to break anything yet.

Clockwise from top left: Lou, Frankie, Phoenix and Andy

It was on one such trip a few weeks ago that we decided that of our four cats, we have two good cats (Lou and Andy), one sweet cat (that'd be Phoenix) and one fun cat (yup, that's Frankie). That's not to say that they're not all good, sweet and fun, but these are easy ways to categorize them.

Frankie is, how can I put it?, energetic. He is also incredibly charming, amusing, clever and intelligent. Frankie is at times desperate for affection and at other times quite pleased to yell at me for some minor infraction or perceived slight against him.

One of Frankie's favorite activities is supervising food preparation in the kitchen. Here he is checking out Jeff's cookie rolling technique at Christmas time:

But Frankie wasn't always this healthy and gregarious. When I first found Frankie on the street in Istanbul almost three years ago, he was playing in the street by crouching in the middle of it, then watching with fascination the cars passing just inches over his head. Naturally, I scooped him up and took him to a safer location in Cihangir.

Only a few weeks later, though, I came across Frankie at the same spot where I had deposited him, but this time he had almost no fur on his body, a result of a raging fungal infection, and someone or something had squashed his front foot so badly it looked like it needed to be cut off. He looked absolutely terrible, so gross, in fact, that I was almost afraid to touch him.

But I'd already invested some time and attention into the little guy and I wasn't about to stop now. Off to the vet we went. It turned out fixing his foot was an easy matter -- that cleared up and healed in 24 hours. The fungal infection was something else though. That required four weeks at the vet with daily baths and medication.

Here's what he looked like then:

And that was after his foot had healed and some fur had grown back! You can see the crazy in his eyes, can't you?

And here's what he looks like now:

And, yes, his fur is decadently soft. But though Frankie looks different from when we first found him, his personality hasn't changed much from the kitten who would bolt out of our apartment to run up to the roof and hang over the ledge to watch the goings-on below. (Yes, I still can't believe I allowed him to do that, though you must understand that no one really "allows" Frankie to do anything; he is in charge of his own destiny.)

So keeping an eye on Frankie can sometimes be difficult, especially for people in our house who aren't used to cats, which is why I don't blame the cleaning lady when she forgot to close the balcony window last week and Frankie fell from our third-story balcony.

Thankfully, Frankie is pretty much okay. I didn't see him fall, but from his injuries, we surmise that he landed on his four feet and then his jaw hit the ground. No bones were broken, and his jaw was only bruised and sore for several days. The bad news came when we looked at his x-ray and realized that Frankie's diaphragm was injured, which meant he would not be able to run, jump or play for a minimum of two weeks while it healed.

Did you catch that last part? No running, jumping or playing. Frankie. The cat who can jump six feet in the air to catch a shiny treasure (a ball of aluminium foil), then bring it back to me to do the same thing 10 more times.

So for the past eight days Frankie's been sequestered in the guest room, where there is nothing higher than a folded-out sofabed for him to jump on. It's been hard on Frankie, to be sure, but I think it's been just as hard on me to open the door everyday and tell him he can't come out just yet, that if he does he might exert himself so much that his diaphragm will touch his heart and that'd be the end of Frankie.

This has all happened at the same time that we have been trying to take care of one of our favorite outdoor kitty's kittens. She had three kittens, two of which have died, and the third of which is trying to beat off an infection in our extra bathroom while her mother gets antibiotics for the same infection at the vet.

It's been a steep learning curve for me, this business of dealing with newborn kittens. I'm not very good at it. Though I've had cats my entire life, my experience keeping cats alive has mostly included dumping food in a bowl and taking them in for annual vaccinations. My track record at saving street cats in Turkey so far hasn't been very good -- I've lost more than I care to count, mainly because I take pity on the saddest of them all -- and the two I lost these past two weeks has really shaken my confidence.

But yesterday I opened the door to our guest room and sat down on the bed with Frankie and realized that he is our best success story. That silly cat was going to die out there of fungus and an infected foot, and we saved him. And then we brought him home and loved him. And though he has tested my patience, my tolerance and my acceptance in ways my other cats never have, I still love that dumb cat.

Frankie will always be my fun cat.

The Three That Made It

On Friday I mentioned that one of the kittens we were taking care of died, and several of you sent such sweet condolences here and on Facebook that I thought I'd share some photos of the three kittens that DID make it and are now living in the garden next to our apartment building.

I picked up Squeaks -- she's the mama cat -- and the kittens this morning from the vet and returned them to the little garden house that we set up for them about a month ago just after Squeaks had her kittens. (WARNING: Adorable kitten photos ahead!)

They're all doing well so far. Though one of Squeaks's kittens died, she is still left with three kittens because about a week ago the vet came across a kitten whose mother had died and, thankfully, Squeaks adopted the baby and took it in as her own. So she's still got three kittens!

There's little Puff Puff, who I'm pretty sure accidentally fell into the food bowl, which is why her face is all dirty:

And there's Bonus, the extra cat that Squeaks adopted. He's very playful, which made it quite difficult to get a good photo of him!

And then there's my favorite (yes, I have a favorite!), Squeaks Junior, who looks just like her mama:

See the resemblance?

As much as I adore seeing them outside every time I leave the house, I am not naive enough to think they'll all be there forever. I know how outdoor cats are -- they come into your life and they leave it -- so I'm just hoping that whatever happens to them, no matter where they go in the future, they're safe and healthy.

And if you live in Izmir and would like to adopt some kittens, I do believe they'd do much better in a house than in my garden!

Next up: All about Louis de Bernières talk in Kayaköy yesterday!

Protest Against Animal Cruelty in Istanbul

I am writing tonight to let you all know about a protest against animal cruelty that's taking place in Istanbul tomorrow. If you will be in Istanbul on Sunday, January 23, might you consider joining the 2000 or so people who have pledged to protest against the Istanbul Municipality's barbaric treatment of the street dogs in their care?

The march will start at 11am on Sunday at Gezı Parkı in Taksım and will proceed to Galatasaray. There are a variety of animals rights groups in Istanbul who have banded together to organize the protest and they have a Facebook event page where you can sign up and get more info.

I won't get into the specifics of the details here, but you can also see some videos shot at the Hasdal Shelter in Istanbul of the horrid conditions these dogs lived and died in. (Many of these pictures and videos are graphic; please don't click if you have small children around and be sure to turn the sound off on your computer.) This is the first time that I have actually seen videos of what happens inside these so-called "shelters", though we all know that reports of the municipality poisoning dogs and abandoning them in the forests to starve are absolutely true.

Unfortunately, I cannot attend this protest as I am in Izmir this weekend, but if any of my readers are willing to go, I'd be more than happy to publish your account of the day with photos here on Turkish Muse.

I know that the topic of animal cruelty is an uncomfortable topic for many of us, and it is hard for me to think or write or read about without feeling my throat tighten and tears fill my eyes. But the only way we can change the situation here is to first inform ourselves of the atrocities taking place -- no matter how difficult they may be for us to face -- and then get on our feet and do something about it.

If you can't attend the protest tomorrow, consider signing an online petiton at Change.org(which will be sent to the mayor of Istanbul and the lead vet at Hasdal Shelter), hanging up posters around town which you can find here, or at the very least, reading the blog of Let's Adopt, which would keep you informed on what's going on in Turkey regarding animal rights. 

I hope the protest is successful -- and by that I mean that I hope our actions can lead to a better life for all of the street animals who live in Turkey.

Working With Cats

Have you ever wondered what it must be like to work from home? To sit in your pajamas all day, take lunch whenever you want, maybe crack open a cold one in the afternoon...you probably know that it's not quite like that, although, damn, I do wish it were!

I work at home with four cats who insist on spending most of the day with me in the office. What can I say? They love me.

There's Andy, who likes to make sure that my pens stay on the floor, where they belong, naturally. And Lou, who likes to sleep on the modem. Phoenix, who generally does leave me alone for the most part. And then there's Frankie, who likes to either sit on my lap or on my chair or yell at me for not playing with him enough.

Which brings me to today, when I was trying to edit the 500 plus photos I took in Prague last week for a post -- maybe two? -- about the lovely city. As you can see, it's not easy for me.

And, yes, that is Frankie sleeping in my black leather chair while I sit on the white one. I do too much for these cats.

How I Keep My Cats Happy and My Kilims Safe

Turkey can be a challenging place to be a cat owner. Veterinarians are sometimes sketchy, cat food is expensive and finding a bag of decent cat litter can take me an entire afternoon sometimes.

Cat toys and accessories are almost non-existent and when you do find them, they're often pricey and were obviously designed by people who have no idea what cats like.

Take scratching posts, for example.

Scratching posts for cats here are generally about 12 inches tall -- not nearly high enough for a cat to get a good stretch -- and made of cheap rope, which tends to fall apart after a few months of rigorous cat scratching.

No matter how hard I looked or how many vets I visited, I couldn't find a single decent cat scratching post in Izmir. As a result, I almost went insane trying to have both kilims (Turkish carpets) and cats in my home.

And then, just when I thought I'd have to roll up my carpets for good, I found a solution.

And it only cost me $441.71.

Enter the Purrfect Post and its bigger, stronger cousin, the Mondo.

The two posts on the left, the Mondo and the Purrfect Post, were delivered a few weeks ago all the way from California. The third post is one we brought back from Istanbul recently. (Yes, you read that right: we actually had to go all the way to Istanbul for a rinky-dinky little cat post.)

The Mondo is a whopping 99 cm (39 inches) tall with not one, not two but THREE places for the cats to scratch: the bottom platform, the post itself and the top perch.

 

 

The Mondo, as you can see, is very loved by Frankie.

Of course, he's not the only one:

In the few weeks we've had these two posts in our house, the scratching of our carpets, rugs and sofas has gone down to nearly zero. For two weeks, I rolled up all the kilims and carpets and trained the cats to ONLY scratch their posts. With some complimentary catnip that came with the posts and lots of positive reinforcement when they scratched the post and not, say, my sofa, they very quickly learned what was up.

Now, these posts are not cheap. The two posts themselves cost $195, but the shipping -- oh, the shipping! -- almost made me faint. We paid $246 to have $195 worth of stuff shipped to us.

But was it worth it? Oh hells yeah. If you have cats and carpets, or if you live in a furnished apartment and don't want your cats destroying your landlord's furniture, these are awesome alternatives to your Ikea sofa armchair. And now my beloved Hakkari kilim is safe.

My next task: to stop Frankie "helping" me cook....

*Just so we're clear: The Purrfect Post company did not pay me to write this post and I have only done so because I really, really like these posts and wanted to tell you about them in case you too are trying to have a life with cats and kilims.

Lessons on Standing Up for Yourself

Yesterday we took our two cats Lou and Andy (both imported from America when we came to Turkey two and a half years ago) to the vet to get their nails clipped before leaving for the US on Tuesday. (Clipping their nails before we leave on a trip ensures minimal damage to my belongings. So does rolling up the carpets and putting them away.)

 

Lou and Andy

Both cats have gingivitis, something our vet Can was seeing for the first time yesterday. They've had bad teeth and gums since they were kittens, and a vet in Philadelphia told us three years ago that gum disease would continue to be a problem as Lou and Andy got older.

But Can's mind went to more sinister territory. As he showed me in his Turkish vet medical book, 25-30% of cats with feline immunodeficiency virus -- essentially, cat AIDS -- present with gingivitis symptoms. That's nice, I said, but they've already been vaccinated against AIDS, PLUS they've both have gingivitis since they were 3 months old.

Can wasn't having it. We went around and around, him telling us that gum disease is a clear sign of cat AIDS, me telling him that a) they've been vaccinated; b) they've had gingivitis since they were babies; and c) they exhibit no other symptoms of AIDS.

Assuming that I must have misunderstood him and did not grasp the magnitude of the situation, Can called his English-speaking friend Gul over to translate. She proceeded to tell me everything Can was telling me. Just in English.

"I understand everything you're saying," I told Can. "But it is impossible that they have cat AIDS. What you're saying doesn't make any sense."

"I am 99% sure they have AIDS," he told his assistant. In front of me. Striking fear into my heart.

Now, as anyone with a pet can attest, this is classic vet behavior. My cats are perfectly healthy, minus a bit of gum disease, but what vet is going to accept that? What vet can resist proclaiming that your cat needs a $240 test for this, or a $150 blood sample for that?

And to be honest, Can and I have been at loggerheads before. A few days ago, in fact, I took Phoenix and Frankie in to have their nails clipped and was berated for not bringing my cats in every three months for anti-parasite medicine.

But I feel that this issue is much larger than vet-takes-advantage-of-cat-loving-foreigners-willing-to-do-anything-to-ensure-said-cats'-health.

I think there are other issues at play here regarding different cultural assumptions, my lack of trust in Turkish veterinary science, and also, my weakness in standing up for myself and my beliefs in the face of what I consider questionable customs.

There are some cultural differences that are completely innocuous and whether or not you subscribe to them is generally unimportant to how you live your expat life here in Turkey. Wearing slippers in the house, for example. Afternoon tea. Putting on an undershirt in the winter.

But expats also must deal with much larger cultural differences sometimes and most of my experience with these has been at the vet's office. I am, in general, skeptical of most vets in Turkey, and doctors, for that matter. I do not trust doctors to always know what is best for me (or my cats), the way that 73% of Americans do. And I do not have a lot of faith in Turkish vets (see here).

Despite this, when faced with the threat -- and I do not use this term lightly -- that my cats might have AIDS, well, Jeff and I did the only thing responsible pet owners would do: we authorized the test. That is, when confronted with the idea that my precious little babies might have a life-altering disease for which there is no cure, I went with the one thing that would ease my mind: a 240 TL blood test to tell me what I really already knew: Lou and Andy don't have cat AIDS.

Which, I should point out, was always obvious to me. But that makes me the dumb one in this situation, doesn't it?, since I essentially gave in to the vet's scaremongering tactics. I failed to stand up for myself, and indeed my cats, who were subjected to a quite unnecessary and stressful blood draw.

So the question I want to throw out there today is: How do you stand up for yourself in the face of differences -- whether cultural or not -- when you believe firmly that you are in the right?

Whether at the vet's office or the doctor's office, whether on behalf of your cat, your child or yourself, how do you say to a Turk, "No, I don't believe/trust/follow you"? How do you stand up for yourself when you are entrenched in an established community with certain beliefs and protocols that you simply don't subscribe to?

You guys are really awesome

Thank you to each and every one of you who commented or wrote me an email expressing your sympathy over the recent death of Peaches. I read each and every one of them and really appreciate you guys taking the time to share your condolences.

We are still not exactly sure what happened to poor Peaches when she got her vaccinations last weekend, but whatever happened, something sure went wrong. In the past several days, I have learned that this kind of thing does happen, usually as a result of vet error or allergies, but it is rare and it certainly doesn't make me feel any better about it.

Anyway, all I wanted to say is, thanks so much, you guys, for trying to cheer me up and sharing your own stories.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

I know I haven't been around much the past several days. So much for my 30 posts in 30 days. Ah well.

Unfortunately, what brings me back to blogging today is not to tell you about how I spent my weekend at a five-star hotel and thermal spa (a birthday present from Jeff), or share with you how I learned how to make the most amazing roasted veggies from our Couchsurfers last night, or how I finally managed to make the best brownie-cheesecake I've ever had in my life, all of which, I promise, I will get around to telling you about.

But right now there is something else weighing heavily on my mind.

Right now my heart is very heavy and sad.

Peaches, the little kitten that we rescued from the street, rehabilitated in our bathroom and found a loving home with our new friend Lloyd, died from "complications" from a series of vaccinations she received over the weekend.

I don't know how it happened. I don't understand any of it. I have never heard of kittens dying from vaccinations. I mean, aren't vaccinations supposed to SAVE a kitten's life, prevent her from dying?

I haven't talked to Peaches' vet yet, but when I do, ooh you better believe he's getting a piece of my mind. In English, of course, because I am not fluent enough in Turkish yet to stream off the obscenities that I think are in order here.

From what I can tell on the internet, kittens can die from complications from vaccinations, but it appears to be rare, and when it does happen, two causes are most likely: 1) the kitten had a severe allergic reaction to something, or 2) the vet gave the kitten too many vaccinations at once or too much of a single vaccination.

I would like to believe that Peaches' death is not the vet's fault, but....but...this is Turkey, and -- I'm just going to say it -- the level of veterinary medical care in this country stinks. It is no where near as developed as vet science in Western countries, and I secretly harbor a wee bit of ill will towards various vets, some of whom are very good friends and people, for things that I think would have been handled differently in the US.

To have spent all that time and energy and love and affection and attention and, yes, money, on Peaches, to have saved her from a life of misery on the street, to have nursed her back to health and given her a wonderful home, to have played with her and loved her and cuddled her, to have fallen completely in love with her, and now this.

Something we thought would be good for her, would make her healthy, would make her strong, would make her live to 17, has killed her. I just can't believe it. I really can't wrap my head around this.