Foster "mom" again!

The shelter has been looking for a foster home for a mother cat and her five kittens for the last week, and I took one look at them yesterday and fell in love, so we're now foster parents again :) Lucky kitties won't eat the carpet like the bloody rabbit!

The kittens are just 3 weeks old and absolutely tiny. I don't think I've ever seen kittens this little before, and they are just the sweetest little things. The mother (who we named Cleo) is also a gorgeous kitty. She's happy for anyone to reach into her space and pick up her kittens. She's also incredibly affectionate, very loving and has a very pretty face.

So we'll have these guys for about 5 weeks, just looking after them, and getting them used to being handled. I got a large wire crate from the shelter, which the kitties stay in most of the time. It's plenty big enough for them, keeps them from going too far (they aren't very steady on their feet, so they certainly don't need much room!), and will help them learn how to use a kitty litter tray. We'll just them out regularly to play with them and cuddle them. It certainly makes it much easier to keep them, I can just wash the blankets in the cage if they make a mess. We've let Cleo out a few times, and she hasn't gone far from us, she hasn't tried to go downstairs, she just wants a bit of attention herself!

There's 4 little boys and one girl, the girl is a tortoiseshell, one boy is a grey striped tabby, 2 boys are mostly black but have some tabby stripes starting to come through, and other boy looks black, but seems more like a really dark grey at the moment. It'll be interesting to see how their colourings develop in the next few weeks!

Review on 10th and 11th books for the year

Louise kindly lent me 3 books - "A child called It", "The Lost Boy" and "A man named Dave", all written by Dave Pelzer.

Dave was abused by his mother in what is apparently amongst the worst child abuse cases ever recorded in California. Between 5 and 12 his mother treated him as a slave, gave him impossibly short time limits to complete chores, and punished him with physical and mental abuse if he didn't complete the chores. He was made to swallow ammonia for being a "bad boy", for which his horrendous crime was things like stealing food from other children at school because his mother hadn't fed him for days, or for speaking to his mother before she had given permission to speak. Other punishment included regularly being starved of food, having to make himself throw up each day to prove he hadn't found food elsewhere, being beaten, kicked, punched, strangled and thrown around like a ragdoll on a daily basis. As a 5 year old (I think), his mother managed to pull his arm out of his socket during a beating. She didn't bother taking him to a hospital until the next day and claimed he fell out of bed. The cruelty shown to him is just horrible, and you wonder what can turn a human being into treating their own child like that. Especially as she had 4 other children who she treated like regular children.

Anyway, "A child called It" is about his life while he was with his mother, and the abuse he received up until age 12, at which point he was rescued by his school teachers, and put into foster care.

"The Lost Boy" picks up his life as he starts out in foster care, trying to regain self confidence, and work out who he is and where he belongs in the world.

These books were really interesting, and not the most pleasant things to read, especially if you think about a child that same age you know and imagine them being put through such horrible things. I still enjoyed them though, and how even as a young boy, Dave never let his mother win, in that while she was bigger and stronger, he had the mental capacity to improve himself once he got away rather than falling into the same abusive habits.

It's also interesting because he grew up in this part of the world where I am now. At one point, he lived in Menlo Park, which is only 2 cities away. It just makes it almost more "real".

I've just started "A man called Dave", which is his life from an 18 year old as he gets out of foster care and faces the "real world". Stay tuned for this review.

Atenolol and training

When I left Australia I made sure I had a good supply of my beta blockers (heart medication). I've just realised that I'm getting pretty low, so called up my new cardiologists office to see if they can get me a new prescription over here (I don't see him for another month or so.

I also checked that they were happy with the dosage (the dosage was set by other cardiologist before it was confirmed that I definitely had an aneurysm), and because I get my heart rate to 120 pretty easily just through fast walking and easy cycling, they're putting the dosage up.

I'm kind of pleased, because I'm limited to basic exercise and have to keep on holding back, but a couple of times when I've accidentally taken a double dosage because I've forgotten that I've already taken one (I'm hopeless with medication), it really knocks me around. For maybe half a day I feel absolutely exhausted, my heart rate drops, and it really slows me down.

Fingers crossed that it just takes a few days to get used to it!

Pixar!

We found Pixar Animation Studios!!!! I love Pixar movies, and we were out in the Oakland area so we went in search of Pixar, and here's the evidence. If only they did tours...

Shelter kitties

We've had some interesting kitties at the shelter recently, and working there has been incredibly rewarding lately.

There's 2 kitties, Inky and Harley, who were both previously incredibly shy, and are finally coming out of their shells. Inky was previously in a home where the other cats picked on him, and managed to damage one of his eyes, which I think he is now blind out of. As a result he is very scared of other cats, and while he is very affectionate, and loves his head being rubbed, he would never want to come out of his cage, and would sit in his litter tray the entire time and try to hide his head behind the edge of the litter tray if you tried to get him out of his cage.

When he first started coming into the play cages, he would try to hide in the hidey boxes in the scratching post tree and it was such a pain to try and get him out. Now he rarely goes in there, and loves his head being rubbed, and will actually jump down to the ground and investigate what's going on with a bit of confidence. He also started playing a bit last week, and I even got him in my lap for a bit. I think he will be a lap cat once he gets comfortable in a new home. He's very sweet, and will make a great companion for someone.

I'm not sure of Harley's past but I don't believe she had a happy one. When she first got to the shelter, she would not come out of her cage to play in the larger play cages. If you tried to pick her up she would hiss and growl and bite, and get very aggressive. She generally loved being patted in her cage, but would still sometimes get very aggressive even if you were just trying to pat her. As a result, she never came out of her cage, and she didn't get a lot of attention because us volunteers were a little scared of her!

2 weeks ago, one of the other volunteers managed to get her out of her cage and into the play cage. He said she hissed and growled at everything in the cage, and took about 10-15 minutes to settle down, but then was very sweet!

So now she's settling down a lot more, and since we don't have many kitties at the moment, she has one of the bigger cages, and is a completely different cat. She's much more friendly, is is so much more settled in the play cages. She previously would prowl around the play cage and would not stop the entire time she was in there. Now she jumps up to the window and watches what's going on outside, she's finally starting to play with a few toys, and I even picked her up and put her on my lap where she stayed purring away contentedly until I had to get up. I think very soon, she'll be jumping up to the volunteers laps looking for cuddles.

I'm still wary of her, and I generally don't pick her up, particularly to get her out of her cage, unless she's facing away from me, but she's just dramatically increased her chances of being adopted. I think the kindness of the volunteers and staff has greatly contributed to this.

It's just such a rush to see how you can change a kitties life, and help find them a new loving home. There was a previous kitty, Whitie, who came in as a stray and was incredibly shy with people in the play cages (but fine with other cats), but after lots of gentle coaxing, slowly came out of his shell and turned into a complete lap cat who loved attention. Every day I went in, he seemed more and more confident. He went to a home that I wasn't particularly happy with (I didn't like the lady), but hopefully he's doing ok!

The whole experience is great anyway, and certainly breaks up my weeks while waiting for that damn work permit!

Allergy testing

A friend from Andrew's work, Marc, got some allergy tests done recently and got photos as well, which were really interesting, so I decided I should get tests done as well. As I mentioned previously, I get really itchy arms, and get lumps that look and itch like mosquito bites, and I wondered if it was caused by an allergy to something.

So, here's the results - redness and lumps indicate allergies.



As you can see as it turns out I have a fair few allergies!! It's always good when the doctor comes in and says "oh my God, you're so red!" :) They have to measure how wide/long the redness is, and the girl doing the test was having issues figuring out which redness belonged to which test, so her and the doctor both had to examine me trying to figure out which was which! The big welt in the middle of my back is a big reaction to grasses. The column to the left of that which is almost all red, is a rection to all but one of 12 weeds they test for. On the far left column is animals - toward the top is reactions to horses and cats (d'oh...), and toward the bottom is a reaction to dust mites, on the far right is a couple of trees. The main things were the dust mites and grasses, weeds and trees.

So we need to do a few things to get rid of the dust mites (bye bye woollen underblanket!), and I have a heap of steroidal creams to put on my arms. The doctor also recommended immunotherapy (ie. a series of shots to build up immunity to these things), particularly the grasses, weeds and trees.

Unfortunately I can't start the immunotherapy until my cardiologist gives me the all clear, because the shots are a contraindication to the beta blockers I'm taking, and I need to make sure that if I have a reaction to the shots, whatever the stuff they give is ok with an aortic aneurysm (which apparently it may not be).

I still feel itchy, but I don't know if I am actually still itchy, or if it's in my head (you know how if you see a movie where spiders are crawling over someone, you keep feeling what feels like spiders crawling over you...).

Books 7, 8 and 9

Book 7 for the year was Marian Keys "Further Under the Duvet". A book of short stories she's written - mainly real stories about her and her life, some previously unpublished, others published in magazines. Also talks about her battle against alcoholism when she was younger (which ironically turned her into a writer). Some stories are funny, some are sad, all are well written.

Book 8 was Nicci French "Secret Smile". This book annoyed me. Nicci French writes thrillers, and I've read one before which was quite good. In this story, nobody believes the girls story that this guy she dated for a couple of weeks is psychotic, and killed people, because he tells people she's stressed and not to believe her. He befriends the policeman looking after the case and convinces him she's lying. Lets not mention that this guy has a history of violence and strange behaviour, and uses fakes names (so wouldn't have any ID with his real name). As well as that she never tells anyone the whole story about what he's done, and also finds evidence that he's killed someone, but she never does anything with the evidence - doesn't hand it over to the police (because he's friends with the suspect), doesn't show her family (because he's wheedled his way into their lives)... And I'm sure if in a case, where the suspect became friends with the investigating officer, you could request a new officer. Anyway, it was quite annoying, and not worth the read.

Book 9 was Burned Alive by Souad which is "The shocking, true story of one woman's escape from an "honour" killing". And yes it is. Souad is an Arabic woman living in a small village in the West Bank and born in the late 50's. At 18, she has petrol poured over her and is set alight by her brother in law because she is pregnant, and unmarried. She would also receive the same fate even if she was not pregnant, and someone had have discovered she was secretly seeing a man (or even if she wasn't seeing a man, but someone THOUGHT she was!!), as it supposedly damages the family's honour, and she must be killed to restore their honour. This is the story of life as an Arabic female, and the daily beatings they must endure at the hands of the men in their family - purely because they are female, which makes them worth less than the sheep and goats. When she was on fire, some women nearby managed to throw her into a fountain and put out the flames, and she was taken to hospital. She managed to live, and get saved by a European aid worker, and taken to Switzerland to finally receive treatment. This is her story of how it is, and to get more publicity about "honour killings" which still happen today, and countries that still have laws to protect men who commit these killings. Definitely worth a read.