Heads Up It's a long one to update everyone since Thanksgiving

The Medical Saga that led to the Menagerie

I had heard so many stories of PCVs being gifted pets by their community or taking in strays. The Volunteer who came before me had 2 dogs. And did I tell you she had 2 dogs. By the way, as every member of my community says, she had two dogs….and she left them both here, where they cried for weeks after she left. So, my community is not so much concerned with my having pets as they are with what will happen to said pets after I finish my service. Nice. But anyway, to start, I was promised a puppy German Shepherd, Traviesa, whom many of you have seen in pictures on this blog. I made the amateur mistakes of believing the word of a Nicaraguan (this may sound harsh, but you will understand once you’ve lived here) and falling in love with an animal that wasn’t under my rood yet. I then left for IST, or Training, for the last weekend in November. This was followed shortly thereafter, with the Medical Saga of 50 Shades of Diarrhea. Needless to say, the Medical Staff wanted to check me out. Because I was in Managua on a weekend, the Bioanalysis lab was closed and the Medical Staff preferred Metropolitano, the state-of-the-art hospital that is even nicer than Porter Hospital in my hometown. It’s actually kind of disgusting and sad how developed this one little spit of land is in a country that is just one step above Haiti. But I digress….

So Metropolitano apparently can email you your test results or you can check them online with a PIN. I have never had a problem with giving blood before, but Mr. It’s-Sunday-so-it’s-a-slow-day-and-I-am-the-worst-male-nurse-ever decided to go fishing around in my arm and then had the nerve to tell me to calm down, breathe, and drink some water. I did more than 10 tests over the last 2 weeks; blood, platelets, urine, parasite, amoebas, cryptosporidium (no idea on this one), the works! I had stayed in a hotel in Jinotega for the week prior to IST because I self-diagnosed a bacterial infection and a fever. The test results in Jinotega pointed to not one but 2 bacterial infections (2 for the price of one) and it’s quite likely that at least one was the same infection from the week before.  I stayed in the hotel to be closer the lab and have a little more control over my diet (and be closer to a modern toilet and hot water). The results from Metropolitano came back with lower bacterial counts (yay for antibiotics) but a new yeast infection. Oh boy! But that came two days after the fact, because the entire hospital network was down, and the Peace Corps Office was closed on Monday. Thank God for the pool at the hotel! The PCMO I had seen most often also wanted to check me for parasites that do not show in other tests, so between walking back and forth to the office, the hotel, and the lab,  I checked my email.

 There was a general email to all PCVs titled “Cats.”  A volunteer in Masaya had found a stray cat in her house and had begun taking care of it when it has given birth to 4 kittens in the next couple of days. This poor girl is not a cat person and is about to COS (finish her service) on the 14^th of December. So she wanted to know if anyone wanted some cats. Well, in my current medically downtrodden and emotional state, I replied that sure I would take them. She texted me asking how many I wanted. I replied that they looked too young to separate and she replied that it would be best to keep them all together. Sure I’ll take them all. And, thus I spent a week in Managua as “that girl with the kittens” moving from hotel to hotel with a big cardboard box with holes punched into it. Needless to say, all the other Volunteers staying in the hotels wanted to see and ooooo and ahhhhh over Mom and kits. And a big thanks to Hotel Los Pinos for letting me keep them in their hotel while I went to appointments.

By Thursday I was more than ready to leave, and the tests had all come back negative. Still was not feeling 100%, but once the tests come back negative, there is no reason for the PCMO to keep you in Managua.  The doctor asked me how much of my current situation might be psychological………………………………yeah no not going there. She did offer to send my report to a specialist and to the Medical Office in Washington to see if there was anything a new pair of eyes might be able to get. But, with the holiday season coming up, that might take a little while. So I gathered my things at the hotel, shoved Momma Cat into the box and tried duck taping it shut with the help of Hotel Staff, grabbed the bag of worms (I was also carting worms since IST to hopefully use for vermiculture-they did not make it sadly). Momma Cat managed to escape in the taxi, but the driver helped me shove her back in before finding out that I had missed the 8AM bus to Jinotega and waiting with a very pissed off Momma in the Mayoreo bus station. The bus driver refused to let me have the box in the bus, so he loosely tied a piece of string around the box and threw it up on top of the bus. Unfortunately, after the 3 hours bus ride, I simply took the box and walked to the next station to get the bus to my site. I did not notice until it was too late, that the box was much lighter and not moving. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Momma Cat had escaped en route. Don’t know where, don’t know when, but somewhere along the highway, or in the bus station, is a very confused white cat with yellow and black splotches. Luckily, I was able to stock up on baby formula and a bottle. Based on e-How.com “How Old are Your Kittens?,” I was able to determine that the kittens were somewhere between 2-3 weeks old, since they had just opened their eyes  and ears while staying in the hotel. I was able to stay with a Volunteer en route to my site so I wouldn’t have to walk to my house in the dark. She fell in love with the kittens and we snuggled them and coddled them for hours. I got them back to my house the next day and they have become the things-to-see for all the youth in Cuatro Esquinas. The first few days were rough bottlefeeding, in part because the baby bottle teat is about 10 times the size of Momma Cat’s teat and I can only imagine how scary that looks coming at you, but once they got hungry enough, we have all become pros. Words to the wise; it’s easier to wrap them up, it’s easier to do them in turns multiple times, the little nails don’t hurt that much, they learn to pee and poop on their own within the 3-4 week period.  So that’s how I got 4 small mouths to feed. But wait, there’s more……

Once I got back to site, and spent a full day getting used to the feeding schedule for the kittens, I hiked up the hill to see Traviesa. She was still there, but Dona Coco told me, sheepishly told me that they actually weren’t selling the puppy. I begged and tried to understand why they would go back on their word and even offered to pay for her, but her son said that the pup had gotten bigger and started following him and he wanted to use her to work the cows, so no. I was literally in tears on my way down the hill. It may sound really cheesy, but  I had told so many people about that dog and had made myself believe that once I got healthy and once I got back I would get a dog and this just seemed like one more way in which I was still an outsider, out-of-sync and running out of patience. Dona Coco told me I could wait 3 months until the mother gave birth to her next litter, but I walked down to the pulperia (general store) where Dona Moncha also had a few smaller black puppies. She had not vaccinated them or given them vitamins like Traviesa had, but I was emotional and irrational and asked her if she was selling them. One for 100, she said. Done. The next day I returned and bought to bigger of the two. I had to carry her back to the house, because at 3 months, she is not leash-trained and also terrified of everything. I had already bought dog food in Jinotega on the way back to site. The first night she did what any puppy in a new place would do-she peed and pooped in the house. Thank God for concrete floors that are easy to clean. I named her Sombra (Spanish for shadow) because she is all black except for a little marking on the front of her chest. I washed her with flea and tick soap, which was exciting because she can kick and squirm for a puppy. I easily got just as soaked. I walked with her into Praderas to buy a real leash and collar and vitamins and parasite meds. Everyone in my house drinks filtered water, but God only knows what Sombra eats when she goes outside. She was nice enough to take the hint after I tied her up outside to cry for a whole morning (literally cry and howl) that she was supposed to do her business outside. She refused to leave the house to go to town, so I carried her in my shoulder bag the whole way there and then dragged her the whole way back on the new leash. She’s starting to get the idea. She will not let me go anywhere around the house though without following; latrine, kitchen, take a shower at my neighbors, etc.  She is neutral with the kittens at least. But that is how I got one more mouth to feed. Current total is 5, not including myself. And she hops into bed with for the night now that she’s clean. It’s almost like home again to have something to cuddle and talk to.

By the way, I am not turning into a crazy cat woman. At least 3 other volunteers have already claimed kittens once they are older and the volunteers come back from their vacations. Still haven’t figured out what we are going to do with the animals for when Dad and Sean come….will have to see if they can feed on their own. Fingers crossed. I do love how my community understands that I hardly leave my house now, because I am taking care of “los ninos” or the children. According to them, because I don’t have actually children of my own, these are my kids. My kids have taught me to be patient, and to expect less of my day, to take it slow and develop manageable routines. And they are also just funny to watch. As any single or new mother would admit, the days fly by when there are at least 3 feedings in them. J