tough night ahead for kitten

I had a non-cancellable business dinner. Luckily it was just a block from home. Partway into dinner I realized that the vet is open till 10 PM even on holidays. I ducked out of dinner early and ran over there to see if they might have any of these kitten bottles for sale.

Unfortunately, they sold their last one two days ago. So I’m left with Sami’s shop, and I’m not sure what time it opens tomorrow.

The vet on duty said, no, she’s two weeks away from being able to lick milk from a container. He did give me a syringe, free of charge, as a stopgap.

And yes, she was able to take a bit from the syringe. But it was thoroughly unenjoyable. She treated it like horrible medicine.

She’ll do fine, but this is a big step backwards. She’s back into the shivering, somewhat neurotic mode of her first 24 hours after rescue.

I wish I had known just how dependent she was on this single means of milk delivery; then I would have made sure to have a couple of backup bottles to cover for her inevitable destruction of all the bottle nipples.

It might not sound like much in principle- waiting 12 or so hours until the pet shop opens. But you have no idea how much milk she normally drinks in any given 12-hour period. She’ll get through it, but this is going to be a really un-nice night for her. I’ll keep looking for stopgap solutions in the meantime.

The one saving grace is that she’s actually shown a surprising ability to eat some dry food tonight (the vets last Monday told me she might). So she won’t be entirely without nutrients. But the lack of liquid is what worries me. I’ll have to keep giving her minimal syringe drinks.

But here she comes brushing my leg. What a sweetheart, not angry at all.

Purring! Wow, what an adorable kitten.