I had never planned to ever own a cat, let alone two, that changed the night my daughter asked to save two sick feral kittens. I told her we would nurse them back to health and then take them to the shelter. A few minutes later, she brought in two small kittens (approx 8 weeks) in definite need of medical attention. They both had severe conjunctivitis, respiratory infection, and were underweight. The smallest one seemed to only have one eye, so we named her Uno. We later learned the next day at the vet her eye was just extremely swollen and matted. The second, Squirt, was difficult to look at because all three of her eyelids were swollen and coming out of her eye sockets. She was blind. As soon as I saw them my heart melted and I wanted to help them.
The vet told us they may not survive. The next night we made a trip to the emergency room because Squirt hit Uno in the eye and blood came gushing out. Her eye was so bad they couldn't make a diagnosis - they said they thought her eye exploded and started talked about her getting infection and dying. Her head was so tiny they had to fashion a cone to put on her to protect her eye.
Lots of medication, TLC, and trips to the vet the kittens made a better than expected recovery. Uno has both of her eyes - one a little foggy. Squirt has impaired vision - one eyelid partially covers her right eye and both eyes are foggy, but you wouldn't know by watching that she has vision issues.
Needless to say, we kept them, they kind of grew on us. Now they are 9 months old and doing very well; spoiled rotten.
Rock Island, IL
