9-23-25 Suzie Q

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I have to tell you about Suzie Q. Before I begin: the fosters and permanent residents are fine. This post is not about the current fosters or about past fosters that you have met. This is about a foster that you did not meet, and her story.

Here is your warning: it does not have a happy ending. If you’d like to skip this post (you can click here to go directly to the pictures/videos from yesterday’s social media posts), I absolutely understand and support that. Regular posting will resume tomorrow.

I have been exceptionally lucky in my fostering career that the happy stories far outnumber the sad ones – but the sad ones do exist, and I couldn’t bear to let Suzie Q’s life go unremarked.

Suzie Q came to me on September 1st, the Monday after Lilia was adopted. She had shown up on someone’s doorstep as a stray along with four 4 month old kittens. And she was very pregnant. She was about 18 months old.

This beautiful medium-hair tortie girl was incredibly sweet. She was also very, very thin. Her spine and her ribs were far too prominent. While she was very pregnant, I thought she had a little time still before she had her kittens, and I was glad that we’d have some time to fatten her up.

She came to me to foster for Forgotten Felines, and her 4 kittens went to another rescue.

She was initially very shy, and spent her first few hours hiding behind a box in the litter closet. I got her to come out and eat – and she ate well, an entire can of food at one feeding, and most of a can at the next. She decided pretty quickly that I wasn’t someone to fear, and by the end of the day she’d come right out to see me when I walked into the room.

She showed me that she was a lapcat. She loved being petted, she liked being snuggled, and she spent a lot of time in my lap.

And she showed off her Ears of Annoyance when a loud truck went by.

That first evening, as I was sitting with her on my lap, she gagged loudly. She didn’t vomit, and she didn’t do anything else, just settled back down and purred. I made a mental note of it, and continued petting her.

A while later, before I went to bed, I fed her again. She sniffed the food and gagged again – but then ate a few bites. I thought “Well, that’s odd,” but wasn’t alarmed.

Tuesday morning, I walked in to find that she hadn’t eaten. When I offered her a different kind of food, she gagged and walked away. A few hours later, still gagging, she started grinding her teeth. I wasn’t able to get her in to see the vet Tuesday, but got a drop-off appointment for Wednesday. As the day went on, she continued gagging and just wanted to cuddle.

I dropped her off at the vet Wednesday morning approximately 30 seconds after they opened.

They did an ultrasound. The vet couldn’t see exactly how many kittens there were, but said there were at least 4. She thought it would be about 10 days before she had her kittens. Her fecal was fine, and they thought that her nausea was probably due to her pregnancy, so gave her anti-nausea medication.

And as an aside, naturally she ate half a can of food while she was at the vet. I don’t know what causes a cat who refuses to eat, to suddenly eat at the vet’s office – the vet tech referred to it as “stress eating” – but I’ve seen it a LOT over the course of 20 years of fostering.

I got her home, and the gagging continued. She refused to eat. Finally, I resorted to syringe feeding her, which she didn’t like, but she kept down the food I got into her. I hoped that the nausea would abate, that her appetite would come back, and that she’d start eating on her own.

It continued like that through Thursday, and then Friday morning I thought she looked a bit brighter to me.

Later, Fred and I left the house to run some errands, and were gone a couple of hours.

When we got home, I went up to check on her and feed her. She came out from the litter box, I syringe-fed her, and then her tail brushed against me, and it was wet. Her back end was wet, and I went into the closet where the litter boxes were. There was a puddle on the floor, and some wetness in the litter box, and this is how taken by surprise I was: I thought “Could she have a urinary tract infection?”

It took me a minute to realize that her water had broken and she was in labor. I didn’t see a lot of contractions – just one or two – but she was in the crate and stayed there, and honestly she wasn’t in distress.

After a few hours had passed without any kittens, I talked to Michelle, dithered a bit, and then told Fred “I’d rather take her to the ER and be told she’s fine than vice versa.” We loaded her up and took her to the ER vet.

There, they did an X-ray and counted 7 kittens. One was in the birth canal, but the vet believed that she should be able to pass the kitten; none of the kittens appeared overly large on the x-ray, and rather than opt for surgery, they wanted to see if Oxytocin would kick her labor into gear. They gave her the first dose, and then brought her back into the exam room, turned the lights down, and gave her a box and a soft blanket.

We were sitting there in the exam room, waiting to see what would happen. Suzie Q was sitting in the box starting to have contractions. Suddenly, a woman – a Door Dash driver – appeared in the exam room window, tapped on the window, and made a questioning/shrugging gesture, either “Where do I go?” or perhaps “Is this your food?” I just stared at her, but Fred pointed her toward the front door.

This seems like something that would only happen to us.

I can’t remember how long it took, but eventually Suzie Q had a couple of strong contractions, then left the box and went into the corner under the bench where I was sitting, and we could see a kitten. The vet tech and the vet got on the floor with her while we tried to stay out of the way, and Suzie Q very quickly birthed a second kitten.

Both kittens were very, very premature, and neither was alive.

The vet suggested that we leave her overnight at the vet, in hopes that she would give birth to the remaining kittens and could avoid surgery.

We went home and in the morning the vet said that Suzie Q had had the rest of her kittens, and unfortunately none of the kittens had survived. The vet did bloodwork, and aside from being anemic, everything was normal. We brought her home, and when I opened the carrier she went into the crate, curled up, and went to sleep.

She didn’t eat. We chalked that up to “Well, she had a rough night, maybe once she’s had some time to recover…” We gave her time. She wouldn’t eat. She was still gagging. I resorted to syringe feeding her again.

It continued like this through Sunday and into Monday. She wasn’t getting any better, she was doing nothing but curling up in the crate. She started having diarrhea. I got the okay to drop her off at the vet.

A few hours later, the vet reported that Suzie Q had a high temperature, the diarrhea was “from another dimension” and the fecal showed “giant rods and protozoans.” He thought that perhaps the culprit was tritrichomonas foetus.

Tritrichomonas foetus, or T. foetus, is a common parasite that causes chronic feline large bowel diarrhea, often seen in young cats and kittens, according to this page at Pet MD.

They kept her there, started her on various medication, and started fluids.

She had a couple of iffy days, and then a couple of good days – had even started eating on her own. But then she unexpectedly stopped eating and turned jaundiced. The vet did bloodwork (which looked awful compared to the bloodwork done just a week before at the ER vet) and thought it could be hepatic lipidosis (read more about that here).

A few days passed, she got better… and then she got even better. And then she ate a little on her own! Not a lot, but it was a definite start. By the middle of last week, she was improved enough that the plan was to move her to Michelle’s house where she could finish her recovery.

Unfortunately, the day that was to happen, Michelle called to tell me that Suzie Q had passed away.

I cannot believe that that poor sweet girl had to go through all of that, fought so incredibly hard, and then she died. I don’t know if the vet ever determined exactly what the problem was, but I suspect that having a litter of kittens, getting pregnant again so quickly, and going unfed for too long was just too much for her poor body.

She had obviously been inside a house before. At some point in her life, someone was kind to her. Someone loved her. I wish I knew her story. She deserved so much better.

I honestly thought that she was going to get better, that I was going to eventually introduce her to y’all, that I’d tell you her sad story, and we’d marvel at how she’d managed to overcome. And then someone would adopt her and give her the life she deserved, full of love and pampering and being spoiled absolutely rotten.

It’s so unfair.

Suzie Q.
Rest in peace, darling girl.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As you can imagine, all the care that Suzie Q required didn’t come cheap. The trip to the ER vet alone cost $1,200. I can only imagine what a 10 day stay at the vet added to that cost. If you’d like to make a donation to Forgotten Felines of Huntsville in Suzie Q’s memory, I know it would be much appreciated. Ways to donate are below.

You can donate to Forgotten Felines of Huntsville in the following ways:

Paypal – forgottenfelineshsv (at) yahoo.com or this Paypal link.
Venmo – user name @Teresa-Franks-6 (last 4 digits of the phone number are 6572)
Zelle – forgottenfelineshsv (at) yahoo.com
If you prefer a check/money order, email donations (at) ffhsv.org for the address; also use that email address if you have any questions.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Posted on social media (Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/Tumblr/ Bluesky) yesterday.

12 weeks old! They are SO grown up. This week, Nolan is a tiny bit heavier than Owen (they’ve taken turns being the heavier kitten since birth.) Check out their weight chart. They’re going tomorrow for their spay/neuters!

🎉 Former fosters Pippin (formerly Carmy) with his mouse, and Rupert (Richie.) Sharon reports “Rupert likes to be as close as he can be to me. I appreciate his supervision.” How cute are they? SO cute! (Thanks, Sharon!)

YouTube link
The Tiny Dancers, having survived their morning weigh-in (and being told how delightfully chonky they are) are returned to the crate where Tango shows off his walking skills (he’s getting there!) and then they return to a pile and go back to sleep.

Tango, nursing in his sleep.

YouTube link
It’s dinner time for the Alphabet Soup Gang, and they’re having a starvation!

Esmerelda is such a sweet snuggler, have I mentioned?

I was cleaning out a closet under snoopervision. (Nolan over there by the dresser, Patsy lying on top of the carrier, and Owen over there on the right.)

Good night innernets. (Tango, using Flamenco as a pillow.)

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Previously
2024: “Oh hiiii! Just hanging out in the crate!”
2023: No entry.
2022: She’s all “How YOU doin’?”
2021: “Come ON, lady, a mama needs her Churu!”
2020: An outtake from yesterday’s lineup picture. Athos is like “Just TAKE the picture, lady!”
2019: Guilty little faces. Gabrielle in the front, Fleur in the back, Beauregard to the right.
2018: No entry.
2017: No entry.
2016: I could just sit and take pictures of Two-Bit all day long. He is such a little poser!
2015: “Hey! Outta the way! You’re ruining a perfectly good selfie!”
2014: Smackdown on the Ess scratcher!
2013: Just the PRETTIEST boy, that Norbs.
2012: No entry.
2011: I’m starting to think he’s letting her win.
2010: Until then, I’m going to try to achieve a state of Sugarbutt-type zen.
2009: Hoyt cracks me up with his woe-is-me expressions.
2008: No entry.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: “Dude, your butt is wet. Why is your butt wet? What did that horrid woman DO to you?”

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