Happy 8th (!!!!) Gotcha Day, Flowerbelle!!!! (Very pic heavy LOL)

She was in such bad shape when the people who found her in the liquor store parking lot arrived at the vet. She need a strong, female name. We chose Flowerbelle Lee, the character Mae West plays in My Little Chickadee. Our Flowerbelle Lee is a petite little thing, but just as much a flirt, and just as persuasive and able to get her way!









You went through so much that first... seven months (until we finally had that eye out!)





But how DARLING are you??????







You do love to be "up" !









Our deaf little one-eyed wonder, who talks with her paw.



Flowerbelle.... we are blessed to be your family!

I have to add... this is one little girl that was SO HAPPY to be rescued and be "home." She purred 100% of the time (other than sleeping) for the first... several years of her life. (She still purrs when eating! In fact, she still purrs about 50% of the time).

And her eye was always so dilated, for about the first year we didn't know the color of her eye! That girl LOVES to play and get into mischief! She chases shadows and bites at moving light.... who can resist all that cuteness?

That first picture was taken after she'd been at the vet 2.5 weeks already. It was the first time I met her. Gary didn't want me to meet her at first - a) because the vet said he gave her a less than 50% chance of surviving, and b) she was "too cute."

The couple that dropped her off were going to take her back and put her in the parking lot because they didn't want to assume financial responsibility for her. Gary happened to be at the vet when it happened. He overheard, ran out, threatned the guy, and grabbed her.

Her ears were sunburnt, something had attacked her and she had to get her front leg stitched up (not that shoulder thing, that was later). She had such a horrible infection, her eyes were glued shut, her ears were infected and full of mites. She had to be tube fed with IV fluids for like a week. She lost her eye (and likely her hearing) to the herpes virus.

That surgery on her shoulder was to remove something. Turned out to be just some type of granuloma.

We found one of our great vets because of her. We took her home from the local place, and she was still coughing. Gary thought she had pneumonia, so we got a second opinion. I'll never forget that day... we hit it off with Stan, and he checked her over, got a small fecal sample and went to look at it. He came running into the room and said to Gary, you've GOT to see this. He'd never seen a fecal sample so teaming with parasites. He didn't recognize them. Went through his books, and found it - lung worm. It's fairly common here now, but it was the first he'd seen it in his (at the time) 18 years of practice. Her lungs were so full of worms, he thought she'd literally drown in 2 or 3 days.

With everything she had going on and trying to save her eye, I had to medicate her 11x a day for those first few months.

But she lived up to her fighting name!!!!!!

My posts are still here - the Little White Cat!

In fact, we still call her "Whitey" more than anything else. (Actually, we call her "Whitey T." The "T" stands for toilet because she LOVES the bathroom and sleeping on the toilet! )

Unless she's on the kitchen counter. Then she's "FLOWERBELLE GET DOWN!" (We do it for the benefit of the other cats. ) SHE may not know her name (because she can't hear), but the other cats sure do.