Ten days ago, we were tagged in a post about a white kitten with horrific eye infections and some sort of unknown trauma. As tough as we'd like to think we are, we’re no match for a photo of a scuffed-up kitten huddled in a cardboard box and texted the finder to meet us at the vet for exam and treatment ASAP. The diagnosis wasn't encouraging—one eye gone, the other maybe, X-rays negative but gruesome facial scabbing and a fragile 0.9 lbs. “Another day on the street and this kitten is dead.” concluded the vet, prescribed “groceries and positive thoughts” and ordered us back in a few days for follow-up.
We’re blessed with an extensive network of caring fosters, but something told me this would be a fit for super-foster Stephanie Yeats Cymanski so I shot her a photo of Sabre in my hand to see if she’d bite. A little while later “OMG!…Details, please.” popped up and I congratulated myself on my clever Jedi mind work. I recapped his situation with as much heart-wrenching drama as I could pack into a text message and added a pic of him eating to upsell the positive. “Poor little Angel!” came the reply. “Let me know how I can help.”
Within an hour, Stephanie scooped Sabre up like mama bear retrieving a cub stuck in a dumpster and hustled him back to her den to start her magic. For the next five days our phones chirped and buzzed with a photo stream of his set-up, treatment, eating, snuggling, sleeping, litter box… the kitten version of what pediatricians must suffer from first-time moms. “Treated his eyes” “He’s following my finger…I think he can see…” “Noticed some sneezes” “Should he be on antibiotics?” “We have purring!” “His poop looks so good!” You get the idea.
Last week Sabre was back into the vet for follow-up with Mama Stephanie hyper-ventilating until I relayed the stunning news that the second eye had begun to recover, the facial discoloration was hair loss from the scabbing and that everything else looked fine. I ferried Sabre back to our facility and within minutes Stephanie skidded to a stop in the driveway, scooped him up and sped off for home. “He must be starving! Let’s get you home, handsome!”
Earlier today, Stephanie sent a photo of Sabre with a gorgeous blue eye staring directly at the camera. With a little photoshop work to make his bad eye Facebook friendly, Sabre is still tiny, weighing just 1.3 lbs (“That's a 40% increase in two weeks!” per his proud mom) but with a buffet laid out for him 24/7, he’s on track for a chubby future. It’s an incredible turnaround in just ten days and testament to the power of a foster’s TLC. Oh, and it turns out I wasn't the only one playing the Jedi mind game and Sabre has his own she-wolf. No, seriously. Sabre.
