Miss Piccolo is one of 15 cats pulled from the East Valley Shelter. Two of the kittens were special needs. An orange kitten with FIP, and this gorgeous girl. She is a special needs kitten because of a herpes infection prior to her birth that caused a layer of scar tissue to form over her right eye. She had a rough start. She spent the first 4 weeks of her life being syringe fed by a wonderful vet tech. When she was reunited with her family, she was obviously much smaller than them and had to be split up again because they were too big for her. When her foster mom had back surgery, this little girl needed 24/7 care, so she went to a new foster moms house. Our dear girl was in bad shape. She was skinny, wouldn't eat, and due to her large water intake we thought she could be diabetic. When we took her to the vet we ran 10+ tests, all of which came back normal. We were left with a dying kitten and no answers. Knowing our girl had a one in a million chance of making it, we started her on fluids three times a day and force feeding her. As our vet said, when kittens come to the vet looking the way Piccolo did, they are usually ready to go. In most cases, it's better to put a kitten like Piccolo down because they are usually in pain, but there was just something special about Piccolo. It was like she knew she had to get better if she wanted to stay on this earth. She still wouldn't eat, but we were keeping her hydrated and force feeding her which was probably keeping her alive. She required 3-4 hours of hands on care every day for 4 weeks. After about 2 weeks of force feeding, she started to eat, and went from a 14 ounce kitten (her weight should have been almost 3 pounds) to a 1 lb 12 oz. kitten in 4 weeks. We were so proud! After that, things continued to get better for our baby girl. She gained weight, her eye started to look better, she came back FIV/FeLV negative, and she was cleared to be spayed! She was really a little miracle kitten! 
As far as her eye goes: She has now been seen by 3 vets who agree that, if she is not in pain, there is no reason to remove her eye. As her foster and having put her through so much already, I couldn't agree more. That's not to say that her eye won't need to come out in the future, but we've only seen improvement. We think that, as she grows, the scar tissue on her eye will stretch and she will gain vision in that eye. She does have some vision in her right eye and full vision in her left eye. We truly believe that her eye will continue to improve.
When she is adopted, her new family will be sent home with a container of l-lysine to mix in with her food as well as some eye medicine. This eye medicine is important for her and the lysine will help with her eye. Sometimes, her eye gets a little red and/or runny. On these days, you will need to give her some eye medicine, but Piccolo tolerates it very well. A warm compress wouldn't hurt either.
It may seem like a ton of work, but it will be worth it. She is the sweetest kitten you will ever meet and you can tell she's very thankful to be alive. Please email us with your name and phone number. We would be more than happy to discuss Piccolo's special needs with you over the phone.
She has also been microchipped.
DOB: July 2012 (However she is the SIZE of a kitten that was born in November 2012!)
Contact Information:
Lexie
Lexie@happystrays.org
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