And then there's Tabs

 Yes, and then there's Tabs, or Tabitha, to be pedantic.

She was born on a farm, and the legend goes that within the first couple of weeks of her life she managed to get caught in a hay bale (although nobody knows for sure, which is very common with farm cats). And so tiny Tabs had tried her mightiest to get out all by herself. Turns out, not a great idea. She ended up with a twisted spine, and two hind legs that couldn't quite receive all the messages from the brain. On top of it all, Tabs was diagnosed with double incontinence. So, she was going to be a little different from any kitten we'd met thus far.

We called her Tabs the Pisspot, with utmost affection. And she didn't mind, she had a great self-deprecating sense of humour (which has been shown to be good for one's mental well-being;). Owing to her 'troubles' she was on some serious drugs, but she was also seriously keen on just saying 'no' to them;) This means that at first it was a bit of a struggle to get the meds into her. As soon as she smelt them, she refused to lick any of the stuff off the spoon (I had crushed the tablets between two spoons and tried to administer them to her in powdered form, mixed with some wet food). However, we humans are triers, too, and with every med session we discovered a few extra tricks, and soon enough she was eating out of our hands. Ha-ha.

By the way, one of the most sure-fire tricks we've acquired is to give them almost no food overnight, so that they'll be starving by the morning (let's hope no almighty algorithm picks up the S-word here and comes after us for animal abuse;). Then they'll eat pretty much anything, in most cases.

There's no denying - first few days with a sick or special needs kitten can be quite challenging. There are heaps of frustration, lots of self-doubt, worry and even despair at times. But once a routine establishes itself, things get a lot easier. Yes, routine is the key, I think. Then everyone involved knows what to expect and when. For instance, with Tabs I discovered that she would poop about an hour after taking the meds with a little wet food, so I knew to be ready for her calls for the clean-up on isle two. The clean-up was needed, you see, because she couldn't quite hit the target - the litter tray, and sometimes she'd fall sideways into the freshly made shit sausage. But she seemed rather calm and appreciative about needing some help with cleaning now and again. Perhaps she even enjoyed it a mite.

At first Tabs was on strict cage rest.

So, like a caged bird, she 'sang'. A lot. She liked to vocalise everything and then some. When she came to us, we were also fostering three black boy kittens, who'd been pretty inaudible until Tabs arrived and taught them a few nifty voice exercises😉. One day, as I was cleaning the boys' room, I had placed them in a carrier in the hall, for safety. Suddenly I heard a lovely recital of a million miaows wafting into the kitten room from the hall, with the soloist (Tabs) leading and the choir (the boys) responding in unison. All I had to do was sit and enjoy. And I did, because it was funny and cute. And that's a hard combo to pull off;)

The weather was sunny and warm during the second week of Tabs's stay with us, so we decided to take her for walks in the garden. Well, we walked, with her tucked in a pillow protector in our arms (to protect her from the big bad world and to protect us from any sneaky leaks). Seeing her smell the flowers would melt your heart. No, really. You see, she is quite possibly the cutest kitten we've ever had here, a true classic tabby cutie:

and when she's surrounded by big, colourful flowers - it's too beautiful to put into words (it would be distastefully sweet, in an annoying, cloying way). And Tabs loved to smell the flowers, so we often had to bend down towards them so she could get her tiny nozzle right in there😊 Now picture that!

Sadly, despite being in high spirits, Tabs wasn't making much progress physically, so a decision was made to take her to the vet's for a couple of days for observation. So a decision could be made whether it would be kinder to put her to sleep or whether she would stand a chance of making a reasonable (if not quite a full) recovery. She left us at ten past noon on Thursday, and the next few days were excruciating, filled with all kinds of emotions. I guess you could say we were feeling the burden of responsibility - when you know that things are out of your control and yet you can't help but feel like you should be able to do something more, even if you don't know what that might be. The age-old fight between feelings and reason. Sometimes it seems it would be easier to just have one or the other - having both often sends people off in difficult and dark directions.

After a couple of days at the vet's, Tabs came back to us! When we collected her, the vets showed us a few exercises we could do with Tabs to help her leg muscles along. So we would hold her upper body and place her back legs on the edge of a box, pushing her downwards and pulling her up again to train the legs. Basically, she was doing squats a few times a day. Another change we had decided with the vets to implement was to allow her some more space. But not too much, so we created her own 'room' in the hall, by closing off half of it with a chest and some boards and boxes. This means that getting to the three boys in the kitten room was now like an obstacle course. No matter, we managed. However, the more courage and strength Tabs gained, the more interested she became in conquering the barrier herself, to get to the other side. She's a cat, so of course one day when I entered the hall (or her 'room' part of it), she was nowhere to be seen! Well, that's until I looked in one of the boxes we'd stacked on the chest to act as the wall of her 'room'. And there she was, happy as Larry😄. Talk about tenacity! The effort it must've taken to climb up there! This was truly amazing and astonishing. And of course, from then on she tried (and often succeeded) to climb 'the wall' every time I was on the other side with the boys. A few days later we decided that perhaps she's ready for an extension, so we removed the chest and the rest and now she had the whole hall to roam. And roam she did!

After she'd been with us for a month, one Sunday morning she had a seizure, complete with vomiting and diarrhea. I had seen seizures before - a friend of mine has epilepsy, but honestly I never expected to witness a kitten have one. Watching a tiny, helpless creature spasm all over uncontrollably, and basically space out for ages, is a fright of some magnitude! There's lots of ugly crying involved, I can tell you that much (although, is there really any other kind outside of Hollywood movies?). We called the vet and she told us to monitor the situation and keep her warm and cosy, and after a while she fell asleep on her favourite lap in our house (so not on mine;).

Actually, speaking of that lap - a few months into her stay with us, Tabs established a routine of her very own. Every day when G came home from work, he had to sit on the bean bag, so that Tabs could leap up into his arms. And that always happened without any accidents, no twitches of the spine - no, this was a straightforward, enthusiastic scamper up her first favourite hairy bastard. As soon as she had landed on her special spot, she started purring and exfoliating her human buddy's face with her little pink tongue. And this had to happen every day. No exceptions! (I have a very cute video of this, but I'm not allowed to show it to you, I'm afraid, so there's just a little snapshot here now;)

Well, life with Tabs was full of sunshine. She's our sunshine kit. And in more ways than one. Mostly because she was one of those creatures who would light up a room and bring a smile on people's faces. But some of those ways are not very romantic, nor are they whatever the opposite of mundane is. Yes, living with Tabs made me appreciate sunlight (in tandem with a breeze) perhaps more than I ever had. It's because living with an incontinent individual means having to use the washing machine daily and sometimes more than once. Which of course means hoping to use the sunrays daily, too. Yes, possibly a tad too optimistically (considering our location) we rely on the sun (and wind) to dry our laundry, and with Tabs around we needed it more than ever. And most of the time it seemed to oblige😉. Although, since she stayed with us almost until Xmas, towards the end of her sojourn the old sky smiley's appearances were few and far between, and this means that although Tabs left us, some of her scent never will😉.

We have to be frank here - it was going to be a challenge finding a home for Tabs, as she had so many special needs. Besides her health issues, she would need a very understanding, experienced and patient household with time on their hands, maybe someone working from home, etc. I'll be honest, we did contemplate adopting her ourselves, we were thinking about setting the kitten room up just for her, maybe getting a chicken run for the garden, so she could spend time outside, but safely, etc. But we also realized that should we keep her, we would have to stop fostering, as we simply would not be able to cope with it. It is very important to know and accept your limits, no matter how difficult it seems. In life in general, too. So, after repeatedly mulling it over, we decided to opt for fostering others. It took a while to get used to living with that decision. But we did.

Thanks to international efforts by some amazing women, Tabs found a home in the UK. And just before Xmas we took her to the guy who was going to take her across the water. It was a windy day that turned into a stormy night, but the boats were going, and so was she. The soundtrack for that night was provided by Lisa Hannigan and her 'Safe Travels', just wishing Tabs to arrive alive. And she did!

And a very nice woman was waiting for her at the end of that journey to open a new sunny chapter in her life.

So, Tabs moved to England and became Katya, a much-loved member of a big-hearted family. She was given her own Facebook page and everything! It's called 'Katya the Semi-Paralysed Cat', in case you'd like to visit.

PS. Sadly, Katya's life ended suddenly and unexpectedly in March 2021. The news came as a shock, to be honest. And it hurt more than I could've imagined (what a weird thing to say - who imagines things like that, anyway?). Well, it hurt like hell.

But it was a pure joy to know her and I don't think we'll be forgetting her in a hurry. Or ever.

I'm going to leave you with a song that's almost as beautiful as she was. It's in Estonian, don't panic😉. Music and human voices are universally understandable (but I'll give you a rough translation of the lyrics below, too). It is a song about sending a beloved on a journey. To the other side.

'Cold' (by Johansons)

So cold, so cold

I'm standing and watching

So cold, so cold

Breathing and waiting

So cold, so cold

Longing has me on my knees

Goodbye, goodbye

I wish you goodbye, that is all

Goodbye, goodbye

Once more, once more,

I'd taste you

With the corner of my mouth

Once more, once more

I quietly hug you

Once more, once more,

I let my glance embrace you

Goodbye, goodbye

I wish you goodbye, that is all

Goodbye, goodbye

So cold, so cold

Death stares at happiness

So cold, so cold

Drawing circles with his fingers

So cold, so cold

Longing lobs me to the ground

Goodbye, goodbye

I wish you good bye, that is all

Goodbye, goodbye

So cold, so cold

I'm standing and watching

So cold, so cold

Breathing and waiting

So cold, so cold

Longing has me on my knees

Goodbye, goodbye

I wish you goodbye, that is all

Goodbye, goodbye