Oliver Kitteh - Chapter Two: In which our hero nearly brings our story to an early end.

Sorry it's been a busy couple days, I didn't get Oliver up here on time! But Oliver's story is one of late starts, after all.

Oliver Kitteh - Chapter Two

In which our hero nearly brings our story to an early end.

As told by Ms Brownlow (italic narration by Mabel).

Read chapter one here.

When we last left our character-kits, the pregnant feral Miss Chloe had been taken in by the kindly Ms Brownlow, and finally gave birth to live kittens: Henry and Oliver.

She decided she'd stay on or near my bed most of the time, and loved lying right by the window.  And she loved the pillows.  Notice here, like many a pregnant lady, she's put her feet up.  She's got her belly
on the pillow as well.

Oliver's brother Henry died on his twelfth day. Chloe was distraught.  She loved her kittens very much and was the best cat mother ever.  It's kind of sad she mustn't have any more kittens, she's an amazing mother. *

Henry had seemed to be doing much better than Oliver.  He hit all his developmental milestones right when he should have, whereas Oliver's eyes opened days later, he was much slower to be able to hold his head up, he slept almost all the time and he never made any noises. He insisted on staying in his little corner of the floor, facing the wall, deliberately blocking out the world.  I tried moving him onto the rug right next to him to give him traction, but he just wiggled himself back to where he'd been.

Finally, on the day Oliver became three weeks old, I panicked.  The trains weren't running properly that morning so I took that as a sign, decided not to go to work that day, went back home to get Oliver and took him to the vet.

There was a little girl kitten at the vet's who'd been found abandoned that morning, and she was estimated to also be three weeks old, and she was walking and talking and never stopped.  Oliver was still having trouble holding his head up.

When I told the vet Chloe's story, and Oliver's and Henry's, the vet concluded that Chloe had almost certainly had distemper late in her pregnancy with the previous litter, and now she was a carrier and had infected Oliver, who was born with neurological problems.

(Cerebella Hypoplasia, to be exact.  More at the end of this post.)

She was very glad that I wanted to keep him and do what I could for him. I couldn't NOT bring him home to Chloe no matter what was wrong with him, as she couldn't stand the trauma of losing another kitten. The vet examined Oliver carefully and spent a long time with us.  He used his little legs like flippers, keeping them out to the side, but his reflexes in his legs seemed pretty much all right.

However, when the vet tried repeatedly to 'wheelbarrow walk' him, holding his rear up in the air and moving him along the table on his forelegs, the normal reflex he should have had that would have enabled him to 'walk' was completely missing.  This was a very bad sign.  The vet did not think he would ever be able to walk.

The kitteh Benatar: Chips is a battlefield

Oh noes! It's looking bad for our hero. A severe case of CH could be a rough go, as you can see from the video above, but a CH kitty in a loving home is still a happy kitty--they're known to be spunky and hard working. The real worry was Oliver's lack of spirit. But at the vet's a strange transformation slowly came over him...

Oliver was very interested in the little girl kitty and seemed to like all the handling by the vet [she's always been incredibly considerate of the animals I've brought there and they've all loved her]. When he got back home, he had a whole new way of looking at the world and an interest in finding more new experiences.  He really was a kitten transformed.

Ahhhh. Hope dawns.

"Cerebellar hypoplasia causes jerky movements, tremors and generally uncoordinated motion. The animal often falls down and has trouble walking. ... The disease does not get better or worse with age, but the cat or dog can usually learn to somewhat compensate for it and should have a normal lifespan." (wiki) In the toughest cases, pee on the carpet can be a hazard. But the cats aren't in pain, and some people only adopt CH cats cause they're so lovely.

A mild case.

Tune in next week (hopefully Tuesday, ahem) to find out about Oliver's new eyes on the world. Oh, you're wondering what Oliver looks like?

Melt. My. Heart.

____________
* A combination of Chloe's feral-ocity, Ms Brownlow's present health, and the local feral shelter that never shows up, Chloe remains unfixed. However she is safely sequestered on the second floor and contented to be so. Her attempts to get pregnant currently consist of sitting in the window singing her sweet song to the local boys, and scheming on how to lure them up to her sweet new pad. Luckily she hasn't got Minion to invent a boy-catching elevator for her. Or does Minion knows how to perform spayings? "Dr Evil is in! You! Get me some towels. You! Get me some vodka. And you! Put on the rock and rollll. That's not a knife, this is a knife!"