OUR FOREVER HOME! by Chloe

As you might have already heard, Charlie and I have been adopted!  So now our foster home is our real home, and our foster mom is our real mom.  Actually, what happened was that when Charlie and I decided it wouldn't be so horrible to live here forever, we started trying to convince our foster mom to make the arrangement permanent.  It took her awhile to get the idea, because she's kind of slow, but finally she did, and Wednesday she signed the magic adoption papers!

Of course, as soon as she became our real mom, she started worrying about vaccinations and annoying stuff like that.  The result was that yesterday Mom stuffed me into the new cat carrier she bought and hauled me off to be introduced to Dr. Patricia.  Piper warned me that Dr. Patricia likes to poke and prod you and stick needles in you.  And that's exactly what Dr. Patricia did to me.  She took some blood out of me for a heartworm test, which I never had before, plus something called a complete blood panel.

Besides that, I had to get a distemper shot, but not a rabies shot, because the last one of those I got is supposed to last 3 years.  And as if that weren't enough, Mom also had to take in a sample of my poop to see if I have worms.  How could a nice cat like me have worms, I ask you?  Besides which, I think the sample Mom got was really Charlie's poop and not mine.  But Nurse Debbie said it didn't really matter because if one of us has worms, the other one probably does, too.  Sheesh.

Anyway, all I can say is that they are quite thorough at that clinic place, and I hope I don't have to go there again anytime soon, because I get very nervous about being out in public and meeting new people.  I'd rather stay home and sleep or else sharpen my claws on the mattress or look out the window for squirrels and birds.  Sometimes there is a fly or a mosquito inside the house that I can try to catch.  I get very excited about that and make excited-kitty noises.

As far as the big Weight Loss Program goes, I now weigh exactly 13 pounds and 15 ounces.  When I first came here, I weighed 17 pounds, so I have lost 3 pounds and 1 ounce.  Dr. Patricia thought this was very impressive, for some reason, although it seems to me that anybody can lose weight if their mom fails to give them enough food.  We are now eating only canned food, and we've decided we like it, which we didn't in the beginning.  Still, we would eat a lot more of it, if we could.

When Mom adopted us, she got all the medical records that came from our first mom, and she read through all of them, and she learned that I was adopted by my first mom when I was 5 months old.  The papers did not say where I was before then, and I think it's best to keep that information a secret.  Mom also could not find out where Charlie came from, but she did learn that Charlie is only two months older than I am, and that we are both 6 years old.  In fact, I am just turning 6 this month, but Mom doesn't know which day, so she made my birthday be November 1 because that's easy for her to remember.  And she made Charlie's birthday September 1.

The other thing Mom learned was the name of our first mom, and she looked up the obituary for her.  And what she found out was that our first mom was only 60 years old when she died unexpectedly, right in our house where we were living.  Our new mom is 58, which is only 2 years younger than our other mom was, so we are hoping she will not also die unexpectedly because we do not want to go through all this homeless-kitty experience again.  It is way too stressful!

I guess that's all I have to tell you about our new forever home right now.  Charlie doesn't have to go meet Dr. Patricia for another week or so because he is still getting over his UTI.  Also he already got all his shots at the shelter when Mom took him there for Dr. Michelle to look at.  But Charlie will have to get a heartworm test and blood panel and stuff like that, just like I did, which only seems fair, if you ask me!