Another Box of Kittens

28/01/2025

Bonded in blindness ✨ My greatest hope and prayer is for The Sisters to find a beautiful, safe home where they can grow up enjoying all the same kinds of playing and exploring that seeing cats enjoy.

My second greatest hope and prayer, if that 👆🏻 doesn’t happen, is for Briseis to let Sabrine get close to her. Amal can see in one eye, so she prefers the company of the big kids in our family. But Sabrine is still shy. She stays alone, sleeps alone, and plays by herself, because she can’t keep up with the others. Briseis could give her so much, and Briseis would get so much in return. Companionship, snuggling, safety, slow movements and no rough play. They both need this, and today we got a tiny bit closer 🩵

25/01/2025

I am the one who saved her eyeballs, not to mention her life, and look at how she is looking at him.

18/01/2025

Here’s the latest on The Sisters! The first picture is Sabrine, my lesser-featured of the two Sisters Kittens. Her sister Amal is a maniac and has been out with the general population of ABK cats for a week already, because she gives no one even a moment’s peace. Sabrine is still healing and needs rest. Amal is having none of that.

Amal. She is my Wild Child. Amal’s eye is settling finally, after 4 ruptures. As we suspected, she has vision in one eye. The blind eye is healing, thankfully, but she won’t be winning any beauty contests I’m afraid. 😬 Her bad eye did not heal nicely like Briseis’s did. She’s giving some Scream vibes on that one side.

Sabrine’s eyes have given me hell. Each of them has ruptured at least five times and she has an ulcer that won’t heal. I think she’s got one more rupture before her eyes start to settle. She is too little for surgery, so we have just barreled through it. Naturally, to deal with the discomfort, she sleeps most of the time. (This is why Amal has to stay with the Big Kids.) We are in our 3rd month of treatment with this rescue, and I spend hours each day cleaning the goopy goop out of her eyes, then medicating them with an ointment and two different drops. Then I use an eyebrow brush to scrape the dried goop off, then I massage them, then I make her food and guard her while she eats, and then I try to get her to play. She is very snuggly and is a great purrer, but she is not vivacious like her sister. She is quiet and solitary and wants to hide in the closet all the time. This is for safety I’m sure, because the last thing she wants is a POWPOW to her bad eyeballs. I hope her personality will change as she gets older and more comfortable. She is a sweet, but pitiful little girl.

Of course, I adore them. Being special-need kittens makes adoption feel almost impossible. Being special needs and (in Amals case) not being very cute either makes it feel totally impossible. Please keep them in your prayers for continued healing, and ask the Universe, for me, to bring me a perfect adoption for them.

17/01/2025

My neighbor has upcycled empty chlorine tanks from our neighborhood facilities department, and has turned them into to cold-weather shelters for the strays on our street.

The Lakeview Compound as a whole, in my opinion, is very animal-friendly. They are cooperative with TNR initiatives inside the compound, they have installed speed bumps down the streets to keep the traffic slow, and finding out that they are giving over these tanks for good use just makes me smile with gratitude.

My cat-loving neighbor Randa isn’t on social media, but I still want to brag on her imagination. The handsome guy posing here is a regular guest inside the Chlorine Condos (he’s the one ABK has been trying to help, getting him neutered and getting his ear mites treated). There’s always a vacancy here. I think she has ten of them! And it’s been so cold lately!

There is good happening in the world. Believe in it! ❤️🐾

10/01/2025

Briseis then, Briseis now. She’s always been the one who loves me the most.

She’s been battling pneumonia this week. The cold snaps in New Cairo have had half of our cats sick with colds but she’s had it particularly bad. We need some spring time temperatures… right away.

05/01/2025

💚🐾✨Amal and her one, beautiful good eye. Elhamdulilah

02/01/2025

Everyone in kitten rescue loved loved loved Wyatt. Rest easy, little Buddy. 💔

This is the hardest post I’ve ever had to write. Wyatt passed away today. He was in his bed and suddenly became distressed. I rushed over, held him, tried to figure out what was wrong, and he stopped breathing. It was very quick. I tried CPR, but he was gone.

I’m not okay. I probably won’t be okay for a while. Wyatt was my whole life for the last 10 months. I know there are hundreds of great memories, but each one feels like a shard of glass.

He was the happiest baby ever. He knew nothing but love. And I miss him more than anything.

Thank you for all you did to give him the best life.

I love you, Wyatt. I love you with my whole, shattered heart.

This is all I’m able to write for now. 💔

01/01/2025

My 2024 had lots of small rescue work here and there… street feeding, temporary fostering, helping people pay for vet care, TNR projects, etc. but by far, my biggest rescue victory came this year when I got Nutella from Zamalek, Egypt to Bozeman, Montana (in the US).

So. Much. Bureaucracy.
Tests, paperwork, signatures, stamps. Repeat.
HELLA expensive.
Bruuuttaalllll travel.
Neverending setbacks.
Constant troubleshooting and hustle.

But look at where she spent New Years Eve. ✨🎆🧨

Just sayin’ 💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻

I want this for every dog in Cairo, I swear.

01/01/2025

I took my stickers (designed by .y.arts!) on vacation with me and left them as little messages for all the visitors to Egypt. I hope you see one someday. !💙

27/12/2024

I couldn’t wait to get to the temple of Philae. You know why.

25/12/2024

Spreading more love throughout and showing people how to take the instead of the horse carriage!!

24/12/2024

Spreading our message to , way up above Luxor ✨

22/12/2024

My husband knows that my love language is having a photo shoot with my cats and sending it to me as a surprise.

Here is my girl Briseis with her blind eyeballs living her most exciting life outside amongst the neighborhood. Her journey inspires me everyday as I try to heal the Sisters and their messed up eyes, wondering if I can also give them a beautiful life even without sight.

19/12/2024

My mother-in-law Mahasen with her rescued Cairo street kitten, Nemo. In 99% of their conversations together, she’s swooning “BasBOOOOOOOsa! BasBOOOOSa!!”

She pets him like you would pet a dog and although you would think a cat wouldn’t like this at all, his favorite place is her lap.

18/12/2024

If you feed them, fix them.

This colony of cats lives in front of a villa that is not mine. It’s wayyyy around the corner from my house actually. When we did a catch there a few weeks ago, I caught, then spayed and neutered, 11 cats from this villa, and we still didn’t catch all that were there. While this was happening, the owners of the villa approached us, very concerned that we were taking the cats away or harming them in some way. They emphasized that they were all animal lovers, and that these strays did not ‘bother’ them. They even said they left food and water for them. Great!

Now. All of this is admirable, and I muchhh prefer animal-lovers who let us do our work over the people who call the cops on us, you know… the people who think that spaying and neutering is Haram.

Still, these cats (in my opinion) belong to the property where they live. And, also just my opinion, if animals live in front of your house, especially** if you feed them, the Universe has mandated that you care for them in all the other ways, too. This not only includes feeding and watering them, but also sterilizing them (to control the pet population explosion that is sure to happen in front of your house if you don’t) and also seeking treatment when they are injured. If you want to do the job, do the whole job and do a good job! God knows that you can do it, or he wouldn’t have placed them in your path. You were chosen for it.

You’re an animal lover? Amazing. Help us put a stop to starving sick kittens who will be born in colonies that are not TNRd. Especially the ones in front of your house.

13/12/2024

Just another Friday morning trying to save kitten eyeballs! 👀

It’s not pretty, but when you see so much healing taking place, the ‘bulging spaceman eyeballs’ don’t seem so awful to look at. To me, this is not graphic at all. I am used to it. And they are healing! I actually believe Amal can see out of one of her eyes.

It takes months for this process, which is why so many people (and vets!) instinctually opt for eyeball removal. And kittens should not go through any of this from the confines of a clinic kennel. When they have no sight and restricted movement, they have almost total sensory deprivation. I like to give the whole process time, and I like them to be at home with me, and I like to be as patient as I need to be. And I’ve been here before. Healing Briseis’s eyeballs taught me a lot.

1. The *most* important thing is to keep the infections away, because infections can go to the brain and the kitten can die. Eyeball cases need antibiotic eyedrops and ointments several times a day….for months.
2. I massage around their eyeballs for them regularly, so their eyes can feel closed a few times a day. (This must be feel so good to them.)
3. I play with them with enrichment toys even when they don’t want to play. Blind kittens are very cautious and are not inclined to play and jump and chase. They sleep a lot and stay in the same place for hours on end, seeking security. But they need to move around anyway, to stay stimulated and to keep their brains active.
4. I bring them out to parts of our home that are unfamiliar. They hate this of course. But they would never leave their safe spaces unless I force them to, and they need to learn to trust that the bigger world (outside of my bedroom) can be a safe place.

I still don’t know what the future has in store for them. I am prepared to change my expectations at all times. We are one month in to this intense rescue and I am still hopeful that they have a future that includes all four eyeballs, perhaps a little bit of sight if we’re super lucky, and I even pray that there’s someone out there who really wants a pair of very calm, beautiful Calico kitten sisters to adopt one day.

04/12/2024

I made a post recently about ear mites and how to tell if your cats (or cats you’re helping might have them. The droopy ear is the biggest sign that the answer is yes!). And I mentioned how incredibly painful this condition can become if it is left untreated.

Then, you may have seen that I took a stray from my neighborhood in to the vet because of a long-standing case of ear mites that had gotten incredibly bad, and I hesitated to share the pictures because I try not to post anything graphic on this page. But for informational purposes, if you want to see what ear mites can do to a cat, please swipe.

The infection will cause smelly drainage from the ear, and dirt then clings to the drainage and then accumulates in the ear. This causes pain and fever, all by itself. You will see puss and drainage from their nose and eyes as well. But honestly, it’s the itching that I believe makes cats the most miserable. Unrelenting itching… can you imagine? This black cat I have at the vet now has been scratching behind his ears for years, before I finally started trying to catch him.

Thankfully, he is getting much better everyday. The drainage from his eyes and nose is gone. The raw wounds are scabbing over and hopefully the hair will start to grow back.

Next, I hope to see the swelling in his face start to go down, and I look forward to the day when he can have his ears touched without any pain, so they can be cleaned out from years of gunk, dirt and puss. Mostly I just want to see him run and play and have some spirit. For years he just walked around with his head hung low, so sad and feeling bad. But those days are over!

He is only 6 years old, but this condition has caused him to look much older. Keep him in your thoughts! ❤️