This morning we put Lefty to sleep. After showing promising improvement since his seizures over the weekend, he took a turn for the worse and we had to say goodbye to him forever.

Since the incident over the weekend, we determined that Lefty most likely had FIP, a dangerously virulent disease that often kills its victims just as symptoms become apparent. Of the three common types of FIP (wet, dry, neurological), Lefty appeared to have the neurological variety. While the rest of his body seemed unaffected, the virus attacked his brain and caused a number of problems, some more obvious than others. We knew he had seizures but it took us a while longer to realize his vision had been affected as well. We're not sure if he was totally blind, he seemed to be able to follow large movements, but he definitely didn't have the visual acuity of a normal cat. But otherwise he seemed okay.

Since discharging him from the emergency hospital, however, Lefty had been fine. We set him up in a large crate so he could roam a bit without danger, and we catered to his whims. He loved formula so we stopped trying to convince him to clean his plate and just gave him the bottle instead. I started mixing some canned food into his bottles, which he readily gulped down. We think he would have consumed anything in a bottle, he loved it so much. Yesterday he topped his record and guzzled down two entire bottles, plus the plate food he ate during the day. One thing was certain, Lefty was not going hungry.

We had to give him several different medications, but this was old-hat for Lefty, a kitten who'd had oral meds nearly every day of his life. Aside from his fur getting crusted with formula, he looked pretty good. We gave him a bath and tried to help him relax. He didn't feel like playing but rather wanted to curl up with us, usually on our shoulders. He seemed drawn to our mouths and would sit next to our faces, first one then the other. As long as we spoke he didn't have any trouble getting to us.  Last night he even got a bit playful, rolling around on my shoulder and grabbing at my nose. It was a bit like the old Lefty, who liked to play with large objects like the corner of a blanket rather than smaller cat toys. Maybe he had vision problems even back then.

This morning I found Lefty in the throes of what I thought was a seizure. He was contorted and making guttural noises, his body twitching randomly. But a seizure shouldn't last more than a few minutes and this kept going. We couldn't tell if he was conscious or not, at times he seemed to be trying to right himself but most of the time he just seemed to be on auto-pilot.

After yet another endless, incredibly annoying livery cab ride to VERG, the vets took him to try to calm the tremors. Eventually the vet came to speak with us. He said the attempts to counter the attack wasn't working, and that based on the signs he was already 'checked out.' He said at this point there wasn't anything more to do, that maybe it was finally his time to go.

We had spent the weekend preparing for this moment, but then we were given a respite when we saw that Lefty was well enough to come home. Even though we knew something could happen again, we let ourselves consider that Lefty might continue to be around. And now here we were, back at the ER and having to say yes, we will put our 3.5 month old kitten down.

We asked to stay, and they brought Lefty in. The anticonvulsives had calmed his twitches down a bit, but he still didn't seem to respond to us. He still looked very cute, which made it all the harder, but we could tell he wasn't coming back from this one. The tragedy of a disease that affects the brain like this is that the rest of his body was really in fine shape, his heart was strong, his belly full. But I took some comfort in the idea that with the brain going first, it's less likely he was aware of what was happening, and I don't think he was in any pain. The vet administered the drugs (they had put in an IV catheter) and quiet seconds later it was all over.

We're very sad but take comfort in the way everything progressed. If it was inevitable, at least we got first, the reprieve (the extra two days after his initial hospitalization) and second, the notion he wanted for nothing until it was time to go. We didn't have much time with him, but we don't regret offering to take him from that guy who came into our vet's office with a 5-day old Lefty bundled up in a cardboard box …

We were there getting our cats Marbles and Jefe checked up when he came in, saying he had found Lefty in Jamaica, Queens, but didn't know anything about cats, much less neonatal kittens. The vet wasn't going to take him, they started giving him numbers to call. It's completely possible he would have called them and found somebody to take him, but he was already whining a bit about how he went out of his way to bring the kitten in. As a cat novice he thought that was already above and beyond the call of duty. We had a little experience with 'bottle babies' in the past, so with some grumbling on my part we offered to take him. We hadn't even seen him at this point and were surprised to see how small he was. We gave him his first taste of formula with a plastic syringe, right on the vet's reception counter. The vet examined him and gave us meds for the upper respiratory infection he would never really shake. We went home with 3 cats in tow, and the rest is now history.

We miss this teddy bear.

His claw was caught in the slipcover, so I thought his movements were related to him trying to wiggle free. But after I released him, he kept wobbling. His pupils were dilated and he couldn't seem to see us. He started wriggling and trying to run across the couch, oblivious to any obstacles or the edge (he almost ran right off). We immediately took a car to VERG, the 24-hour emergency vet in Boerum Hill.

On the car ride over, Lefty had a seizure. I don't think it lasted long but it seemed like an hour, as did the cab ride. By the time we got there, the seizure had subsided but Lefty was still acting oddly. They admitted him and set about quelling his symptoms while figuring out what was wrong. He had another seizure while we were there. The vet said a number of thigns could cause seizures, including poisoning, head trauma or infectious disease. The latter seemed most likely although we did spend a lot of time theorizing about whether he fell off the couch earlier or if his food was somehow tainted. Infectious disease seemed likely; the vet said it can attack the nervous system and cause seizures and vision loss. And if it had gotten to the brain like this, the outlook was not good. They eventually brought him back out to see us, but he was really out of it now, flailing around and not responding to us at all. We had to leave him overnight where he would be observed and given fluids and meds.

The vet called at 1:30AM that night to tell us the preliminary blood work noted anemia but everything else was more or less normal. She wanted to run an Infectious Disease Panel as she thought this was the cause of the seizures. She said we'd have the test results the next afternoon, but there was a good chance it was something like FIP or Toxoplasmosis.

We thought Lefty would be gone by morning. He'd already been through so much, with repeated URIs and a general lack of robustness. I counted it up and in the 3½ months we've had him, he's been to the vet 5 times for illness. He was just never a particularly healthy kitten. But we thought if we could get him through these early months his immune system would pick up and he could live normally. But with this new terrifying incident, it seemed hopeless. A kitten isn't supposed to have seizures.

Saturday we spoke with a neurologist. Lefty had eaten a little overnight but otherwise was not doing well. He did not seem to be able to see, his pupils were reacting to light but he didn't seem to process visually. Worse, when he would get up he would just pace in a circle, again and again. He was now on anti-seizure medicine so he didn' t have any more fits at least. The neurologist said an MRI might reveal the cause, along with a spinal tap. This would be expensive and very hard on little Lefty, so we decided to wait for the test results before proceeding.

But the test results didn't come in Saturday. A problem with a big emergency hospital like VERG is the vets rotate every shift, so every time I called in I got a new vet who was just picking up on Lefty's condition and found it difficult to convey the necessary urgency. This one said the results would be in on Sunday … probably. It bothered me a little they didn't seem more concerned about getting Lefty better, but he was stable so maybe there was no rush. To them, anyway.

Sunday came with no better news, still no vision, still circling. And now he wasn't eating at all, he would being syringe fed by the staff. We started preparing ourselves for what seemed inevitable: he would be diagnosed with advanced FIP and would have to be put down for his own good. While we knew he had always been a bit sickly, it was still hard to accept that our little boy wouldn't be around much longer. But it sounded like he wasn't even himself anymore, his brain was too far gone to get any decent quality of life. We planned to go up to the hospital to see him and most likely say goodbye.

We did bring a bottle of formula. Although it seems increasingly wrong, Lefty never lost his fondness for formula, so when he was sick we would let him have all he wanted. He wasn't great at eating solid food even when he was well so this at least got some nutrition and fluids into him. So we brought his bottle with us; it would be his last meal. We were taken to a waiting room an eventually someone brought him in. In the afternoon we got some of the test results in: positive for coronavirus at a fairly high concentration. While not conclusive, a high coronavirus coupled with significant symptoms is a strong indicator of FIP. We headed to the hospital with our decision made. We didn't even bring a carrier with us.

Lefty looked fine. Well, not 'fine' but he certainly wasn't the mess we'd been led to believe over the phone. He still couldn't see and his coordination wasn't 100%, but he could walk (and not just in circles) and seemed to know who we were. Most of all he was very energetic, climbing all over us and looking for his bottle! We obliged him and he guzzled nearly the whole thing. I know formula is not the preferred food for post-weaning age kittens but like our CRF cat Gilda, sometimes you gotta just find anything they will eat. We still knew he was probably not long for this world, but there was no way we could make that call that night.

So despite the pursed lips of the vet, we asked to take him home. They loaded us up with medicines and a cardboard carrier and we went home. He drank some more formula and napped on us like he normally would. The blindness is still a bit of a jarring reminder that all is not well with Lefty, but it's currently his worst symptom, even his sniffly nose has cleared up for now. Looking back at some of the video I took just before this happened, I wonder if he didn't lose his sight even before the seizures, because he seemed to be doing some of the same actions, like climbing onto the back of the couch and not being able to get down on his own. The vets had called his behavior "abnormal mentation," meaning that his brain was making his body act weird. But a lot of what he was doing is the same stuff he's always done. He may not be right in the head, but that's Lefty.

The prognosis is still grave (or 'guarded' as the vet wrote on the his forms). We know that if this is truly FIP there isn't much that can be done to counter it. We are again trying to prepare ourselves for the moment we have to make the decision to end his life, it's not a fun place to be. But we are much more confident about everything now that we have him with us, we know his behaviors very well so we should be able to tell when things change. And we hope he knows where he is enough to be as comfortable as possible.

It's unbelievable that all this has happened in a mere 3 days: Lefty went from mostly-healthy kitten, to messed-up, to terminal, to not-so-terminal in less than 72 hours. I wanted to write this story up now so people on my flickr account don't see photos with me saying "We're so happy he's just blind now!" and think we're some kind of sadists. It's incredible how fast things can change, yesterday at this time we were sure Lefty wouldn't be around at all anymore, so having him still with us for a while, even in a compromised way, feels like a real gift.

Here's video of Lefty enjoying his bottle when we went to VERG:

I am obsessed with shelter. Mine and the feral cats we watch over. Luckily, my house, however unkempt and run-down, is pretty sturdy. I get antsy when I worry that the skylight may not be watertight, or the cellar may be taking on water. But so far we've been lucky (well, we did have a bunch of plumbing work done to ensure the cellar won't flood).

So my attention ends up mostly being about the cats' shelter.We already have a number of shelters out back, but some are starting to fall apart and will need to be replaced. I built most of them, so I'm always trying to figure out how to build a shelter that will last forever and need zero maintenance.  In the past couple of months, I built a few types of cat houses, as well as purchased a ready-made shelter.

The ready-made one is a FeralVilla, a particularly handsome and resilient shelter. Made of plywood and shingles, it looks good in the yard and last years without much maintenance. We got one several years ago and it's still going strong, so we thought it a wise investment to get another one (they cost around $100). It's probably overkill, but I like having some houses to spare in case others need them.

I built a few shelters out of Rubbermaid containers I bought from Sears, these containers are great for shelters, they have  a rounded roof which is latched for easy opening. The inside is lined with rigid insulation and Styrofoam, the floor is covered with vinyl tiles to protect the foam, and a 6" hole is cut for entry using an unwieldy drill attachment. I'm able to grind these out pretty quickly; ultimately I'd love to be able to sell these to other feral cat advocates to use with their own colonies, but it's hard to have enough time to build up an inventory.

Last month I purchased a bunch of plywood and rigid insulation and set about building my own shelter inspired by the FeralVilla. I didn't really know what I was doing, I just started cutting the panels and figuring it out as I went along. Now that it's complete I can take the measurements to make them with greater precision. But all told it's not a bad start.

Like the FV, my shelter has a pitched roof to drain water (a serious issue for flat-topped shelters made out of storage bins), has 'feet' to keep it off the ground, and has 2 levels inside. The FV's ground level has no floor and is really more of a wind-break. I decided to build an actual ground floor to give cats the opportunity to stay there if they don't want to brave the penthouse. The house has 2 entrance doors, although there's only one entrance to the upper level. I would like to add a second entrance to the top but this will compromise its insulating abilities.  Each level is lined with rigid insulation and I included one of our Holofil cat pillows to give the cat something to nest on.

I covered the top in roofing material and painted the whole thing with gray exterior paint. I would have like a more jazzy color but the neutral gray is good for not attracting attention. When I set it up my neighbor thought it was a compost bin. I think that's a good thing, since I don't want anyone messing with it. I put the shelter out front since we didn't have any there (and it looks better than a plastic storage tote). So far there's only been one regular visitor, a new cat to us. She's a tuxedo cat with a collar on, and has outsmarted our every attempt to catch her thus far. She's probably an abandoned pet, so we're hoping to win her over soon.

I know most of our regular ferals have roosts elsewhere but I hope they use this house if they need it. I think it will last us a long time so in time I hope the cats will see it as just another part of their landscape and not suspect it's another type of trap like they fell for before! Next up: building an incognito cat shelter out of our old garbage cans!

See all the shelters I've been building in my flickr collection: Feral Cat Outdoor Shelters

Lots has been happening in the real world! Currently, we're working on our 3rd bottle-baby kitten of the year! Lefty, above, was brought into our vet's while we were there for another cat. The guy who found him was clueless about kittens, let alone a days-old kitten with a cold. The vet examined him for free and gave us some KMR, and we took it from there. I had to bring him to work for a couple of weeks, secreted in my desk drawer, so he could be fed regularly. He's now eating solid food (though just last night he had a bottle for old time's sake) and looking more and more like a cat and not a fuzzy insect. He'll be up for adoption soon, although I suspect he will be claimed before that.

So much else has happened, including one of our foster cats (Lenny) getting lost and returning nearly a month later with a jaw injury. We also got our senior cat Mabel a much-needed Total Ear Canal Ablation surgery. I should probably make a separate post about that, there's not a lot of info on the web about it, so somebody may benefit from our (her) experience.

Meanwhile, winter is coming and the ferals need shelters! I'm planning to build some more this year, and step up from my usual storage-bin shelters to something sturdier. I'm planning a trip to the Home Depot soon!

We've been participating in North Brooklyn Cats' weekly adoption events when we have cats or kittens to adopt out. It's been an invaluable resource to get our cats seen by an enthusiastic crowd and I don't know where we'd be (or how many more cats we'd still have) without them.

This coming Sunday we're planning on bringing all of our new kittens, plus an adult cat named Tuttle. From our recent TNR project in Crown Heights we now have 8 kittens of varying sizes and personalities, all looking to find a way out of our crazy cat-filled house! Please spread the word and stop by Sunday at Muddy Paws pet store in  Williamsburg from 2-6pm. Here's who will be there (click the photos for more):

Mel is the kitten-mom

Mel, The 'mom' of the group, Mel is affectionate to humans but adores adult cats. She is not as manic as the other kittens, often perching on a high vantage, as if she is keeping an eye on them all.

Skittle: skittish but affectionate

Skittle, a lanky boy kitten started off the roughest customer but quickly turned into the biggest mush. He loves humans and cats equally, head-bumping everything in sight. He can be a little skittish still, but warms up fast.

Bear: he brings the party

Bear is a wild and wooly animal! He loves to play and wrestle and should live with other cats who love to roughhouse. He is vocal and purrs like a motor.

Fanta & Carmine are a perfect pair

Fanta & Carmine are sister and brother tabbies but have very distinctive personalities. Fanta is bold an gregarious, climbing onto your lap and exploring everywhere. Carmine is a bit shyer but wants you to come to him, often calling for your attention across the room. Both love the run and play and nap together as needed.

Enzo is all that

Enzo is a textbook-perfect tuxedo kitten, with a big pink nose and playful energy. He loves to dash back and forth around the room, will chase any and every toy and loves a good petting. His personality will continue to grow as he does.

Maris, mysterious enchantress

Maris is our proper lady tux. She is wide-eyed and often a little fussy, but she loves to cuddle almost as much as she loves to play with her littermates. She will grow up to be a cat calendar model!

Speck is tiny but has a big personality

Speck is our tiniest kitten. She's got a scruffy but endearing look, her fur is still in that fuzzy-chick mode but she is growing fast. She is fun and has a feisty attitude that belies her small stature.

Tuttle, kitten nanny

Tuttle is a ginger tomcat from the same neighborhood as the kittens (he may even be father to some of them). He is a big boy but possesses a gentle soul; he acts as the kittens' nanny, watching over them and putting up with their pestering. He loves to be petted and held and asks for it in a soft voice. You can tell his time on the street was rough because he is very humble; he isn't always sure he deserves all the food and attention we give him. But of course he does! He deserves all this and more. Tuttle is FIV+ but is very healthy otherwise. He can be adopted to a home with other cats if they are friendly towards him or he can be adopted as a single cat.