Cindy & Ashley - Sisters

Currently there are a group of critters in our care known as the 2000 group. This consists of all the critters who were born in the year 2000. It seems that year was a boom for orphaned and stray critters to be born and happen to find their way to the south side of US hwy 82. Their count started at 10; however, with the passing of 2 of them, their numbers are now 8. Most of them arrived as puppies or kittens in the year 2000. One arrived two years later. Here is the story of two of them...

Let me start by saying my older brother is an auto mechanic.

Back in the year 2000...one day, a non-running vehicle was brought to my brother to be repaired. When he started to work on the vehicle, three black and white kittens sprang from the vehicle, running in all directions. He and others tried to catch the little kittens. They caught one. He tried to catch another, but she bit him and took off. They could not catch the third one.

I got the one they caught. She was about 6 weeks old. Being black and white, cinders crossed our minds when trying to name her. From cinders, she was named Cindy. At the time, we had the Russian Blue stray, Misty Blu. Cindy's name became Cindy Lu.

Things were going fine with Cindy until she was spayed. Unfortunately, sometimes when a female cat is spayed, she can become asthmatic. Cindy became one of those cats. Cindy started having difficulty breathing soon after she was spayed. At first the vet diagnosed her with asthma by her symptoms alone. She finally had confirmation of the diagnose a few years later with x-rays, which is the only way to confirm the asthma.

There are many treatments for cat asthma. There are inhaling methods and steroids. Cindy was started on steroids, Prednisone. Side effects of Prednisone can lead a cat to be overweight. Cindy gained weight with the Prednisone and has never been able to lose the weight. She still has a lot of breathing problems. Her asthma is aggravated by stress and seasonal allergies. Recently, over the past couple of years, I have inquired about the inhaling methods. Most of what I have found after questioning local vets and research online is against the inhaling method.

I will soon have a post here regarding cat asthma. Please be patient. If you have stumbled upon this blog because of this post about Cindy and you need information I might have or reassurance, please feel free to contact me or leave a post in response to this post.

A short time later, the guys at the shop caught the third kitten that got away. The owner of the vehicle decided to take that kitten back home. He didn't want all the kittens. His decision to get at least one kitten was strictly to "shut the mother up". I do not agree with his tone, but I do believe in the best interest of the mother, at least one kitten should be returned to her. I hope she and the kitten benefited and are doing well.

A few months after bringing in Cindy, my brother managed to catch her sister, the one that bit him. He called me to come and pick her up. I did. We decided to play along with the cinders/Cindy theme and named her for ashes... Ashley. Adding to the southern charm names... her full name became Ashley Mae.

We had Ashley spayed, and thankfully, she did not develop the same asthmatic problem her sister did.

While driving to the vet's office to pick her up, I saw another cat lying in the shoulder of the road. Usually when I see an animal that has been hit by a car, I say a little prayer for it. As we passed by this little peach colored tabby, she animatedly lifted her head and turned toward the road and our vehicle. I screamed, "Back up! Turn around! It's alive!" We turned around at the next intersection. We went back to the cat in the shoulder; I got out and scooped her up. Brought her with us to the vet to pick up Ashley, but.... that's Amber's story. Check back when I get to her story!

Unfortunately, Ashley's life, although longer than it probably would have been if she were left out on her own, was cut short by lymphoma. She fought it hard, but it was not to be.

To keep this post from being lengthy, I will post the link to the blog about Ashley's illness, as I kept a small journal when she was diagnosed.

Here's the story on Ashley Mae and her illness...Ashley Mae's Journal


I will say I knew it was bad from when I first noticed the lump on her throat. The vet I had at the time did not feel it was necessary to do a biopsy, as he did not think it was cancerous. He thought maybe she had a thyroid problem. My loyalty to one vet sealed Ashley's fate. I had never had multiple vets in the past. I always thought you were suppose to take your pets to one vet. Loyalty. I have since learned, in the best interest of those you are caring for, do what is right by the critters (this also goes for your human children). DO NOT HARBOR THOUGHTS OF LOYALTY! It may cost them their lives. It cost Ashley hers. It took me a month or two to get him to agree Ashley needed more care than he could give and needed to see a specialist. We finally got her to a specialist in the Dallas area.

I now have two vets I use at the same time. Some of my critters go to one and some go to the other for specific reasons. This works well when one is taking vacation or is too busy to see a sick critter that I feel is an emergency. Sometimes I may over-react in what I think is an emergency, but I would rather be safe than sorry. When I am in dire need, I have a third choice I have brought a couple to. I also keep list of most of the vets within my area, as well as several emergency clinics. I am live in a rural area and all emergency clinics are at least a 30 minute drive, that is if you do the speed limit. And, we all know we do not do the speed limit when we are heading to an emergency clinic!