Treatment and Socialization

When Hope and Faith arrived, they were terrified and deathly ill. Malnourished, full of parasites, crawling with fleas and ear mites, blind, congested, mouth ulcers, corneal ulcers, and of course ringworm.

Hope had fallen into a bucket of old gasoline, and Faith's tail was broken in two places. They also had the dreaded ringworm and were infested with numerous parasites.

We had to implement full isolation protocol to keep the ringworm and viruses contained. This involved gloving and gowning, with booties and hair bonnets. Our amazing volunteer snugglers came in twice a day most days to spend time playing, snuggling and gaining their trust. It didn't take long for the girls to let go of their fear and become incredibly affectionate little snugglebunnies.

We immediately began treating their eyes with antibiotic ointment 4-6 times a day, as well as buprenorphine twice a day for the pain. When we first started, we could not see their eyeballs because the inflammation was so severe. We had to wait until the inflammation reduced over the next two weeks to do an exam, and were surprised to see they each had one eyeball with a responsive pupil. We couldn't see the other eyeballs yet.

We were also treating them for parasites and ringworm.

They both had significant upper airway congestion and we had to syringe feed them for 1-2 weeks because they couldn't smell or see their food. This was slow going because they were mouth breathing and we had to be very careful that they didn't aspirate their food. Interestingly, we discovered that if we put a big bowl of babycat kibble directly in front of them and put a piece in their mouths to taste, then picked up and dropped kibbles into the bowl, they could HEAR it, and after several minutes would start eating ravenously on their own. This was a HUGE breakthrough for them.

Amazingly, their eyes slowly began to heal and their immune systems became strong enough to fight off their many infections.

65 days later, both girls are able to see the world around them. Their eyes will never be perfect, but they are too busy pouncing and purring to notice.