By Finnley

As you may have seen, there’s a new tab on this website since some time now. This tab has my name on it, so my humans  thought it was about time I wrote my own story here. For those of you who haven’t read the February blog, I’ll start at the beginning of this.

On the 19th of February 2024, I was sitting on the road in Las Lajas, Argentina , feeling absolutely miserable. I was very hungry and I felt too weak to move. And for a long time now my left eye hurt so badly and I couldn’t really see with it. My neck hurt too, from the wound in it. I heard a car coming, but I couldn’t walk away anymore. Then footsteps approached from behind. I didn’t care enough to turn around. Then two soft hands picked me up and carried me to a place with some shade. I would quickly learn that this wasn’t really a house, but a van. A van that would become my home. I got some water and then some delicious food! Finally! I ate as much as I could, but quickly the dish was empty. And the human who had picked me up said I couldn’t have any more until later, so my tummy wouldn’t get upset (note from Marcia; animals that have been starved for a longer period of time can only be fed little bits of food at first because the digestive system can’t handle big amounts of food anymore). I didn’t agree with that, I was still hungry and thought I would stay hungry again. But a couple of hours later I got more food. And from then on the food kept coming. It took a long time for me to learn that, for months I fought my humans for their food as well. The van then started to move, but although this was new to me I was fine with that. I at least had some food in my tummy and was lying on this soft, kind humans lap. I already liked humans then, so somebody had been kind to me. But where I grew up, the people were poor and there were lots of other cats. Marcia even looked around for more sick kittens, but I was the only one she saw. Well after a bit of driving she took me out of the van and carried me into a funny smelling room. It turned out I was at the vet. I got a shot (antibiotics) and some drops to get rid of the parasites in my tummy. The vet also gave them a bottle of drops for my eye. We then drove shortly to a nice place at the river where they set up camp again. Because I was so sick, they didn’t want to drive me around all day. That day I got a lot of rest and care and eye drops.

The vet had said I would loose my eye. But Marcia told me she wasn’t gonna give up that easily. In the past she had managed to safe the eyes of another kitten, when the vet had said that kitten would go blind. So the next day we started driving to Mendoza, a city 800 km’s away, where there was an ophthalmologist,  an eye vet. With the bad roads and a stop at another vet half way because I had bad diarrhea, we finally arrived in Mendoza three days later. By now I was used to vanlife. It was easy to get used to, regular meals and lots of cuddles and attention. Who doesn’t like that?! The night before I would go to the eye vet, Marcia suddenly saw what was hurting my eye. There was a grass seed stuck in the upper left corner, behind my eye lid. My eye wasn’t damaged from a virus, but due to an alien object. The next day the eye vet took it out and also removed the grass that was stuck up my nose. I felt soooo much better already! Marcia felt sad that I had been in pain for so long and even longer than necessary. The two small town vets didn’t examine me really well so nobody noticed these things stuck in me. Over the weekend I finally started playing, now that the pain was gone. 

But then suddenly on Monday night, I didn’t get any food anymore! Were they going to let me starve now? Then on Tuesday I had a really long nap and when I woke up, I couldn’t see anything at all with my left eye anymore and there was this annoying big plastic thing around my head. I managed to get it off, but then those nasty humans, tied that thing to a harness around my body! That stupid cone would stay there for a month! Fortunately they did start giving me food again, so that was ok, phew! For the coming weeks Marcia kept taking me back to the eye vet a lot. And even to another vet a couple of times. Well Marcia may like vets, but I don’t! I’m the one who keeps getting pricked and probed! All she does is hold me down while she tells me they are helping me and that it’s ok. Mmmh, yeah well, I still bit and scratched her and the stupid vet too. And I’m not afraid to loudly share my displeasure! Marcia says I’m quite the drama kitty and I should stop behaving as if my leg is being chopped off with a blunt axe. I will not!

After a month the eye vet took away the thing that was covering my left eye and I could see again! And I could now see so much better than before I had that long involuntary nap. And they didn’t put that nasty cone back on anymore either!  Hurray! This might have been the happiest day in my life! I was free and I could see! My humans were very happy too! 

After that we travelled around a lot more. Since then I have been to many places I never even dreamed of! I have seen snow and I was really high up in the mountains! I have been to cities and parks. I have been carried around in my backpack. At first I would meow a lot but now I’m quiet because I know it’s my safe place. I have seen many other animals like dogs, other cats, horses, cows, chickens, geese, toads, lots of bugs and even crocodiles! But, ants are my favourite animal, I love following these funny bugs around! I have been on boats a couple of times but they’re not my favourite. I learned how to cross a small stream of water. I follow my humans around and sleep on their bed. I’ve climbed lots of trees, although sometimes I need rescuing. I get to go off leash while wearing this thing around my neck that mysteriously lets my humans know where I am.  If they don’t think it’s safe for me, they put me on a leash though, that’s ok too, but I prefer to run around free. I’m eating normal now and my favourite food is chicken. Marcia took me to a lot more vets, because there was something wrong with my blood. Turned out my body had just really suffered from the starvation and after about 6 months of recovering, all my levels are normal now. Although I still can’t jump really well. But I’m good at climbing, so who cares!

 I am in the 5th country now and I have more paperwork than my humans so I can cross borders too and come back with them to Europe. Unfortunately those official papers have the wrong birthdate on them. When they found me I looked like an eight week old kitten and weight only 623 grams (the weight of a 6 week old). So Marcia put my birth date at the 2nd of January. But when they took me to the vet in Salta in May, the vet said I had a full set of adult teeth. And that doesn’t happen until at least six months of age. So I couldn’t be almost five months in May. I was probably born early December 2023. That also meant I weighed less than a third of what I should’ve weighed when they found me. No wonder it took so many months for my body to recover, it’s a miracle I’m alive at all! But I’m very happy that I made it. And so are my humans