A sad kitten story with a surprisingly positive ending

Astro Girl
Xander

Rocky, now deceased.

Another photo of Rocky.

Recently, we wrote about a young female cat that we had rescued from under a deck with NINE kittens. As a feral cat, Mary was sterilized and sent to an approved farm home, and we placed her nine kittens in foster care. Because there were so many kittens, and they were older and wild (needing lots of hands on work to tame up), we decided to separate them into smaller groups for fostering. Two went to Jennifer (Rocky and friend), one went to Sabrina (Howie), two went to Roxanne (Astro Girl and Xander), two to Rayelle (Charles and Freda), and two to Laura (Batman and Robin).

After several days, I received a couple of reports that some of the kittens had diarrhea. I didn't find this terribly out of the ordinary, as they had been quite stressed, and hadn't been dewormed yet. However, a few days after that I received a phone call first thing in the morning from Jennifer. When she had risen that morning she discovered Rocky, the sweet male tabby who had tamed up the fastest and been incredibly active and playful, lying unresponsive and sick in his room. We rushed Rocky to the vet, but sadly, it was too late to save him. Rocky passed away that morning.

Based on Rocky's symptoms, and the quick progression of his illness, our vet felt that this was a case of distemper, and my heart sank. In our past experiences with kittens with distemper, it has always been incredibly virulent and generally fatal. We quickly contacted all of the other foster homes with the kittens, and sent everyone in to be examined and treated by the vet clinic. Most of the kittens had one or two signs of illness, like vomiting or loose poops or dehydration. But none were as sick as Rocky had been. And the two kittens at Laura's proved to be the exception, staying completely healthy the entire time.

I authorized antibiotics, deworming and sub-q fluids for the 6 kittens at the vet, all the while feeling like this could be an exercise in futility. I couldn't imagine any kitten surviving exposure to distemper. But, Dr Soucy felt that we could try to support them as their little bodies battled the illness. The foster parents all took their charges back home, and began dosing them with the medications.

That was 13 days ago today. And I am AMAZED to report that all 8 remaining kittens are alive and doing very well. We did have one scare with little Freda last week that required an overnight hospitalization, but with some more veterinary attention, she has continued to improve. While she was at the vet, we decided to do more testing, and the blood tests did conclusively prove that it was distemper.

Tomorrow, the kittens will be done their course of antibiotics, and we will be able to say that they survived distemper! Sadly, we had to lose Rocky to discern what we were dealing with. But we are grateful to have saved these remaining 8 kittens.

-Sarah