Katira's Second Day with Us

Katira drinks from a syringe with a small rubber tip, one drop at a time.

     Katira slept through the night beside Marisol, cuddled against my stomach (I sleep on my side).  Except for her first night, Marisol goes to bed when I do, gets up when it gets light - which is when I throw back the covers - and never pees or poos in bed.  Katira followed suit!
     At 6:00 a.m. Marisol drank 10 cc of milk in a few minutes.  Katira took 45 minutes to finish 1 cc of Pedialyte and 8 cc of soy formula from a syringe with a special tip.  Unable to open her mouth, she'd purse her lower lip, I'd put a drop or two in it, she'd swallow, and we'd do it again.  She was hungry and I knew she was happy...she could drink and purr simultaneously!

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      I put salve on Katira's tight, dry burns after breakfast and noticed the scab on her nose was barely attached.  She reached up, rubbed it, and it fell off -  revealing  a soft (albeit gray) nose with no disfiguration.  I was thrilled.
     When I fed Katira again at noon the left side of her mouth started to open, almost imperceptably, and within an hour or two should she could open both sides normally.  Her tongue was intact, but the front edge of it was gray with square ridges...she had either clenched it against her teeth or bitten it when the electricity shot through her.

      Katira wasn't well when she woke from her nap around 4:00 in the afternoon.  I dribbled 1 cc of pedialyte into her mouth and watched as she appeared to "freeze" and stop breathing.  Thinking she had choked, I called Mark (an ER veterinarian from Wisconsin who lives minutes away) and gave her mouth-to-mouth...alternately sucking in case there were fluids, then blowing gently into her nose and lungs.  Mark wasn't convinced she had choked, and when he listened with a stethescope there was no congestion.  Still, she could barely catch her breath.  We tried what we had at our disposal; a shot of atropine, sugar water for energy, breast milk from a Tica neighbor, subcutaneous fluids, and Colicort drops for colic since she was crying like she had spasms.  It wasn't until later that I realized she hadn't eliminated - pee or poo - since breakfast.  Although her superficial wounds were healing, her body was shutting down. [Note: In hindsight I believe Katira had tetanus; lockjaw, and body rigidity and muscle spasms, with a typical onset 10 to 14 days after receiving second and third degree burns.]
      Paul and I took turns holding Katira throughout the remainder of the evening - she received continuous body contact from the moment I adopted her - and when I climbed into bed with Marisol and Katira  I was hopeful that somehow everything would be better in the morning.

No treatment possibility available was ignored...

Paul holding Katira when there was nothing left to do.

     At 12:28 a.m. Marisol woke me up, gently touching my face and purring, and I knew instinctively what she was telling me.  I reached under the covers to feel Katira's body, still warm against my stomach...but she had slipped away. 
     Paul buried Katira this morning under Lynn's memorial tree, beside Hershey, within the circle of large stones.

Mother Earth will swallow you,
                                       Lay your body down.  (Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young)