It is time...

I haven't posted for almost a month now. I couldn't post because the things I needed to post were too hard to post until now. Other things have been going on, too, so this post is going to be a HUGE update of many important things, yay! First of all, on Sunday the 16th of September, Patteron DeBack died. She had been sick the few days before. On Sunday I came home from church and found her stiff and cold. Sunday was very, very hard for me. I carved her name on a block of wood and put it by her grave. That weekend we went camping (I'll give the details in the next paragraph or something). We left Silver and all the babies, since they could get out of their box by then, in my bedroom with the door shut. We put a huge bowl of water and a huge bowl of food in her room. When I finally returned on Sunday afternoon/evening I found that Silver had not touched her food or water at all and was stiff and lethargic. I tried to get her to eat, but she would absolutely not eat. Mom finally saw how bad she was, and we rushed her over to Judy's house. (Judy is a friend of ours who's a vet technician) She said that Silver was extremely dehydrated and rushed Silver and I to the clinic where she and I drew blood and poked an IV in Silver. That night she spent the night with me so I could monitor her IV. It would beep every now and then in the night and I had to readjust the tube a little bit. In the morning Judy took her back to the clinic where she stayed until Friday. Meanwhile, we had 3 sick kittens to take care of at home, and my school started that Monday. Flazer seemed to be doing the best and was more active than the other two kittens. After having them all in boxes, we decided to move them to the bathtub, which is still working great! Wednesday morning when I woke up around 6 am, Mom and Dad told me Flazer was not doing well at all. Sure enough, he was dead by the time I arrived. That was very hard, too, since Pat and Flazer were pretty much my favorites. But there was no time to grieve because I had to go to school. All this time they could not get Silver to eat. By Friday, the last option was to put a feeding tube down her nose and into her stomach. However, the vet said she wasn't quite in a good enough condition to do so. She had been throwing up, and if she threw up with a feeding tube, it would come out as well. It was time to put her down. My Silver baby! That day was very hard, too. We went to the clinic to say goodbye. Judy got a piece of clay and made Silver's paw print in it. At home I wrote her name, a heart, and the dates on that piece of clay and baked it.

♥ Silver,
8/19/06 - 9/28/07

Turned out, there was absolutely nothing we could have done to save her. Her pancreas had swollen to four times the normal size and had cut off the organs around it. Her intestines in particular (gross but true) were literally dead.

Now I know why God gave me kittens that we didn't originally want to have, and why Pat and Flazer died (I'm sure their deaths prepared and brased me for Silver's). And I know that He gave us Siren and Catapultanian so we can still have a cat. We're going to keep one of them. Thank you God for all the fun we had with all these kitties, even if it was for a very short time. God also provided a distraction on our way home from the clinic. My oldest sister called just as we had left the clinic and we chatted for like an hour, which is plenty of time to get home. Angie, my other sister, knew already because Dad had told her when we borrowed her car (more about broken cars later) and had called Laura, my oldest sister, and told her about Silver. However, the timing of Laura's call, I think, was from God. It could not have been planned. I'm looking forward to seeing more clearly and seeing the reason for all this. For now, I get to take care of our two remaining kittens.

The other things that happened in the past weeks are not quite so traumatic. On our way to the camp ground (I was driving, by the way, and it kinda freaked me out) our car overheated in the stop and go traffic entering the freeway. By the time we were able to pull over, we could see the steam coming out of the hood! We sat between two merging lanes at the entrance to the freeway for what seemed like hours. We left the house at 2:30 that day, and arrived at the campground while it was getting dark! Yeah, I suppose we sat around for an hour or so. Camping was great fun, though! I hiked, sailed, kiyacked, roasted marshmallows, and had a blast! I loooooove the woods! On the way back, the same car once again broke down. However, this time I was driving Angie instead of Mom, and it didn't overheat. Actually I don't have a clue WHAT happened. All of a sudden, the gas quit working, and no pushing on the gas petal would accelerate the car whatsoever. By the time we got to a place to pull over, the engine had died, and with power steering, it was very difficult to steer. We tried to start the motor, but nothing would start. Angie and I waited around over a half an hour before Jon and Jim came to the rescue. On my arrival home, I found Silver...
Monday the next day, I started school. It's been fun at school! Yay! I got a new backpack! I'm so exited about it! Ha! I've never needed a backpack until now, so it's an accessory that I've never really had the chance to have. Well, actually, I do have another backpack, but it's Whinnie the Pooh (which I don't really have a problem with) but it's also old, the colors are not what they were originally meant to be, and the peanut I ate from the bottom of it that the previous owner (I got it at a garage sale) had left behind tasted like the backpack. It was gross! And the backpack is small. This new one rolls along like a suitcase if I want, or it can sit on my back! And it's my favorite color - Red!
Speaking of broken cars, Mom and I drove the blue van to school on Friday because nothing else would work lol! and it broke down while we were on our way to the clinic to see Silver for the last time. We ended up borrowing Angie's car. But now we have functional cars, and soon more will be functional. Yay! Can't wait to get my own broken car! Woooot!

Oh, and my birthday's this Thursday. :D