Looking at my beautiful 6 month old tabby and white girl wrestling &
playing with HRFL Tiger while I type this, it seems hard to believe that
she was such a pathetic little scrap who I thought would be making a
rapid journey to Rainbow Bridge when she arrived in my household. I've
copied my posts of the first few days last October.

Lily has blossomed in a beautiful, precocious, confident, funny, quirky,
cheeky little cat who's curiosity will lead to the loss of several of
her 9 lives I don't doubt.

I seems so hard to imagine life before Lily, she's so integrated into
our lives. I see so much of Sir William in her personality, it's not
funny. To the point that she does things that are so similar, that
sometimes I think it's actually him in reincarnation.

Posts below...

28th October 2005..
Folks,

We need some major purrs here. I have on the way to me a CP emergency.
The information I have so far, is that a Cats protection person
discovered a badly beaten tabby bittie in a rubbish skip this afternoon.
He/she has been so badly beaten that as soon as the swelling has gone
down, it will need an operation to remove its eye.

Please purr and pray as hard as you can for this little one. Updates as
I get them once the kitten arrives in chez Miles.

Later that day....

Well, Bittie is at Chez Miles. From the sounds of it, she's (I'll call
her a she, because that is what everyone thinks she is) had quite the
adventure. :o(

She was found in a rubbish skip this morning, and had a badly
burst/ulcerated eye and a lot of blood all over her. She was immediately
taken to the vet, who has discharged her this afternoon to regroup for
eye surgery on Monday or Tuesday. (Her left eye will be removed).
Because the vet called the RSPCA because of the cruelty aspect, they
became involved and came and collected the kitten from the vet. Cats
Protection threw (quite understandably) a complete sh1t fit, and rang
the RSPCA and demanded the kitten back. The RSPCA agreed because the
paperwork said it belonged to CP and so the swap was done in a B&Q (Home
Depot) carpark. Don't ask. She then found her way to me.

A very dirty, scruffy, long haired tabby and white baby, who purrs as
soon as you touch her. That's the bit that upset me the most. She
presses into your hand as soon as you start scritching and asks for more
and purrs hard. She also has very fine pair of lungs and a squeaky
hoarse meow.

I've nicknamed her Miss Whiskers, because she does have a very
impressive set of whiskers. :o)

She goes in for an op to remove the eye on Monday or Tuesday. In the
meantime, she's on antibiotics and lots of TLC.
Just got back from the ER.

29th October 2005....
It seems that Miss Whiskers has an systemic infection from her ordeal.
Quite apart from the damaged eye, something that I didn't mention on
Friday was that when found, she also had quite badly burned paws which
were all puffy, swolen, sore and red, a nasty gash at the base of her
tail, and the very tip of her tail was cut off and bleeding - probably
caused by something sharp.

She had a dose of the runs over the vet table, however her chest sounds
clear, she doesn't have a high temperature, and apart from problems
breathing, she is OK. Vet thinks that she is just sore and in pain and
now the pain killers have worn off from surgery, she's feeling it which
is causing the other symptoms.

She sees the vet again at 9.10am tomorrow morning. I may just be being
over-anxious, but to be honest, she's been through so much I'd far
rather over react than screw up.

Please keep sending purrs that it's nothing too serious. She's really
captured hearts in the Miles house.

----

Oh she's captured our hearts alright. ;o)

Helen m