This past Thursday, Feral Fixers brought in 15 cats to the PAWS-Chicago Spay/Neuter clinic to be processed.
We were supposed to bring in 17, but the caretaker of two kittens that were supposed to be brought in made the mistake of giving them food and water the previous evening (even though he had been told not to). This is a potentially deadly situation as the cat can aspirate food still in its stomach during surgery and choke to death. So, we wound up bringing in only 15.
14 of the cats were feral while one was a 'friendly feral'. We received a call from PAWS that the friendly feral could not have surgery because he was too ill. He tested VERY positive for FiV/FeLV and his red blood cell count was almost non-existent. The PAWS vets were afraid that if they operated on this cat, he would not survive the surgery. With all the cats we've brought to PAWS, I think this is the first time we've run into this situation.
And then one of the feral cats bit one of the volunteer vets working there. The cat was unconscious and in the midst of surgery, when some reflex reaction, combined with the vet having one of her fingers in the wrong place at the wrong time resulted in the cats teeth breaking the Vet's skin. It wasn't a full-on bite, but rules are rules and so this cat is now going to be a 'guest' at PAWS for 10 days on a rabies watch. No one is concerned that the cat actually has rabies, but they need to be sure. We'll pick up the little darling late next week once the quarantine period is finished. Sigh...
I picked up the cats from super-volunteer Judy's house and brought them to PAWS and then picked them up from PAWS and brought them back to Judy's that evening for recovery. Thanks Judy!
With these 15 14 cats, we've now processed 29 for the month, 42 for the year and 2,523 overall.