News from the clinic

5 days of cat clinic done, 3 more days to go!

So far, we have done the sterilization (spay/neuter) operation for 135 cats. That is just amazing. Before the clinic started, I was secretly hoping we manage to operate maybe 100 cats. We passed that number already yesterday! Now I am hoping for 150 cats and that we will propably pass tomorrow!

We have had a great team of vet students from BARC helping out, they have been running around like carzy catching cats and bringing them to the clinic and returning them after the cats are sober enough to go back where they came from. And we have had amazing vets, Rini and Carmen, doing the operations, they have been working so hard and so long days, as have the two vet students, Veronika and Tereza, that have been assisting the vets at the operation room all week. BARC also sent us more medical supplies yesterday, as we were running out a bit, and the supplies came with an extra vet for a couple of days!

Mostly things have been running quite smoothly. After the first two days we realized we need a system to keep track on the cats: where they came from and so on, as we had so many cats. We started a numbering system: each cat is signed in a booklet and gets a number when it "checks in" and the number (written in a piece of a cardboard) will follow the cat all day, until the cat is taken back home or where ever it came from. Made things a lot easier, I can tell you.

Couple of orphan kittens have found homes through our clinic (one ended up coming home with me, naturally....) and JC, the poor cat with nail holes in his paws, got a good loving home from Lutwala Dive. He is getting all the care he needs there now, is being kept inside and gets good food and he does not have to worry about evil, crazy humans anymore. I am so, so happy for him now.

We had another heartbreaking story today. A kitten was found from the street and it was just crawling on his front paws, as his back legs were broken, or he was paralyzed. Either way, he was not able to walk, but was just dragging himself around with his front legs. Watching him do that in a basket and seeing the miserable look in his eyes, I totally lost it and I just had to leave the vets to do their thing. I had to go away, as I was crying my eyes out for the poor kitten. Unfortunately there was nothing to do for the kitten, he had to be euthanized.

It is sad, sad, SAD to see hurt animals, but lucky for all the cats that have gone through our clinic this week, they have been helped out. It will be an easier life for all of them: males don't have to fight about females and the females don't have to spend their whole life being pregnant or taking care of their kittens.

We will be at Blue Marlin two more days (friday-saturday) and then we will have one extra day at Lutwala Dive on sunday, with a small team (just one vet and 2 vet students) to serve the north end of the island too.

I will come and tell how the last 3 days go later, meanwhile, please follow our Facebook-page for updates and check the photos on our November 2013 Clinic -photoalbum (even if you are not in facebook, you can see the photos there!) as I  try to add some photos after each day is finished.