Kelly And Her Little Orphan Foster Kittens

06/02/2026

Update on Gene Kelly!!

The first picture was last Wednesday, 5/27. The 2nd picture was today, 6/2. Can you believe the difference a week makes? There’s still cloudiness, but… My guy is making progress & I’m so happy, I could cry🥹

05/31/2026

Alright friends! Two of our weather babies are ready for adoption. You helped me name them. Now help me find them a home🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

05/31/2026

Inspectior Gadget here is silently judging me for not being more productive today🙄😒

05/29/2026

It’s Friday. I have some new kittens. This is no surprise. The surprise is that their stay with me has been extended.

I received a photo of 2 kittens from Delonda on Tuesday. Do we have an available foster to take them? Well. I looked at the crusty kids in the picture & told her that I could take them in & get them cleaned up & get meds started, as long as they could go to a foster by Friday.

I picked the kittens up Wednesday morning. Yikes!! Flea dirt from head to tail. One with seriously infected eyes. Just awful. I sent photos & videos to the vet & meds were prescribed. I brought them home & before I took them out of the carrier, I prepared the bath. I knew we were dealing with fleas. But I wasn’t prepared for the extent.

The healthy kitten only had a dozen or so. The sick kitten had hundreds. So many that once I started to wash him, he was covered in blood. This poor guy was horribly anemic from blood loss. I’m not sure how much longer he would’ve lasted outside in his colony.

It took a while but they settled in, ate some food. Curled up on the heating pad. And within a few hours, they were playing. Just roughhousing like kittens do. Yelling at me for dinner. Yelling at me for breakfast.

In the morning I became increasingly concerned with the infected eyes. They’re cloudy, not just inflamed. More videos to the vet & she told me to bring him in. She did a dye/stain test. Neon green eye drops that light up the ulcerated areas. The right eye has a moderate ulcer on the cornea. On the left eye, the whole cornea is ulcerated. The vet told me that she’s never seen one that bad. She called the techs over to show them. This poor cat. And he’s so sweet. He doesn’t complain at all. Except when he’s hungry 😅

So. We are on 2 dewormers, an antibiotic, an antiviral, eye drops, eye ointment, and “serum” that is made from healthy cat blood. Thats 3 liquid oral meds. One pill that I have to chop into 8ths. Some meds are once a day & some twice a day & some 4xs a day. And I’m going to hand them off to another foster with no medical training?😑 Of course I’m not.

It’s Friday. I have some new kittens.

05/21/2026

Last night sucked. Plain & simple. I brought home a kitten. Mama cat was young & should’ve been spayed. But because she was failed by her humans, she had kittens that she did not yet possess the instincts to care for. She rejected the whole litter. By the time they reached me, there was only one left. I could not save her. So I held her close to my heart & spoke softly to her. Sometimes kittens pass quickly & very peacefully. But not every time😔

Tonight I’m here with my nostalgic character kittens. They suckle on each other. This is very dangerous so I can’t allow them to spend time together unless it’s supervised. When I feed them I take them all out & let them play together. In this moment, I’m pretty sure that GI Joe was making faces, crossing his eyes & sticking out his tongue… it looks like Strawberry Shortcake is cracking up laughing at him🤣 And Inspector Gadget is just confused.

What a difference 24 hours can make.

05/18/2026

My mind was just reading your mind. And as luck would have it, your mind has been considering taking in some foster kittens😏🤗

It’s kitten season. All hands on deck. YOU get a kitten & YOU get a kitten & YOU… foster a litter of bottle/mush baby kitties. Because if you don’t help them, then who will?😞

We have 2 litters of bottle baby kittens at NAWS who are in search of a foster. These are not newborn “neonate” kittens. These are a bit older, trained with the bottle & will let you sleep for a solid 6-8 hours through the night. So you don’t have to wake up every couple of hours. They’re learning the litter box. On a scale of 1-10 with 1 being the easiest bottle kitten ever, these kids are a 3 max.

🚨The first group are the Ice Cream kittens. DOB: 4/13/26
4 kittens
Creamsicle, Rocky Road, Sherbert, Cookies n’ Cream
These babies were found in the mulch at a locals Lowe’s garden center. They’ve been temporarily in foster since 4/30 & are vaccinated & on dewormers.

🚨The second group are our Nostalgic Character kittens
DOB:4/23/26
3 kittens
Strawberry Shortcake, GI Joe, Inspector Gadget
These babies were with me. They moved to another foster (as is always the case with my kittens) but that foster has encountered an emergency and is unable to continue fostering.
*I do not have updated pics, kittens are a couple of weeks older than the 3 photos.

We need you! Our bottle feeders are all bottle feeding. Please, help us help them. NAWS has an outstanding support system for our bottle baby fosters which includes the necessary supplies to get you foster-ready as soon as today. Look at those babies. They need a hero. No cape needed, just a desire to be a part of the solution🫶🏻

05/15/2026

Miss Tumbler, the pretty kitty who took a nose dive off of someone’s balcony is improving by the minute.

Likes:
Privacy
Soft blankets
Her heating pad
A warm bottle

Dislikes:
Me holding her up for videos
Having her tiny butt wiped
Being out of her carrier
Tube feeding

Luckily she’s able to breathe out of her nose & suckle on her bottle. So no more tube feeding 🙌 The gurgling & wheezing that she had is completely gone. So I don’t think that her fall caused any damage to her lungs. I think she just had an upper respiratory infection that is quickly clearing up. I’ve already got Sarah Marie asking to take her after weaning. I think Leonard & Tumbler are gonna be good buddies when they get a little older❤️

05/14/2026

I got a new foster kitten. Her name is “Tumbler”. Because she fell off of someone’s balcony🫢 I don’t love the name but it’s too accurate to argue with.

I got a message about 15 minutes prior to her euthanasia deadline last night… no rescue had pulled her & she was about to be put down. She showed up to Chicago Animal Care & Control earlier in the day with a bloody nose from her fall, an upper respiratory issue & other unspecified potential injuries. No idea how old, if she was a bottle baby, how far of a fall she had. But she was minutes from being euthanized. So we did the teamwork drill again. Delonda was able to pull the kitten at the last minute by having someone at CACC grab her for us. That person met with Christy to hand off the kitten. Christy took the kitten to Michelle. Michelle did an assessment & late last evening on my way home from visiting someone special in the hospital, I scooped Tumbler up from Michelle.

Tumbler & I are both feeling like 💩 today so we’re cuddling & resting. She’s sneezy & has some sinus congestion. But all things considered, she’s doing pretty alright. I don’t see any obvious neurological issues. She’s not indicating any pain when I move her limbs or gently press on her body. She’s super sweet.

I’m treating her with all of the usual “sick kitten protocol” things. And this migraine of mine is not going away so Tumbler & I are going back to snuggling & resting 😴

05/10/2026

05/09/2026

Leonard (who I affectionately call
“Sir”)decided that he had some Mother’s Day biscuits to prepare. I was hoping he’d gimme one but no. No biscuits were to be had😒