Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Rescue Story: Trinity

Trinity is truly a miracle kitty!
Trinity is truly a miracle kitty!

I posted a bit about Trinity in yesterday’s review of the free-for-ferals TNR clinic over the weekend and promised a little more about her story. She looks like a sugar puff but she’s a survivor, having used up a few of her nine lives already.

The Homeless Cat Management Team’s medical director, Dr. Kristin Rapsinski, also manages her own veterinary clinic and the highly skilled veterinary technician who has been with HCMT for years, Lindsay Joyce, also works at that clinic and gave me the information and photos for this story. They and the rest of the staff are skilled with handling emergencies and providing critical care to cats and kittens. In the course of rescuing cats and providing support for community cats many cats come to HCMT and Pittsburgh C.A.T. with life-threatening injuries or conditions, after being hit by a car, or with a badly infected wound, or with such extreme malnutrition that their organs are shutting down, for instance.

Trinity was attacked by the family dog as a tiny kitten. Because of the potential cost of her care the family signed Trinity over to the veterinary clinic. Many people presume that when they surrender an injured animal to a veterinary clinic the clinic will simply euthanize the animal, but this clinic is not one of those. If the animal has a chance at life, they will give it whatever critical and healing care it needs.

Trinity arrived with a head trauma and a fractured mandible or lower jawbone, multiple skin punctures, and in shock. After stabilizing her body and managing her pain they planned out the reconstructive surgeries to repair her face and jaw, delicate work on a delicate kitten. She was tube fed through the reconstructive surgeries. The gallery of photos below are somewhat graphic but show how small she was and her progress through the surgeries as she healed and grew.

The most miraculous thing about Trinity was that she not only survived the dog attack but twice during surgeries she arrested, her heart stopped and she was technically dead, but was revived by the staff then recovered with no after effects. The final surgery after she’d recovered and stabilized from the reconstructive surgeries was ironically her routine spay, and though everyone who knew held their collective breath during the surgery she came through that with no trouble at all.

Even through all the trauma she is a sweet and playful kitten. Even in the noise and chaos of the clinic she was curious and congenial and wanted pets and attention. You can tell when she’s happy—her tail gives it away! She bears almost no scars from the incident, only if you look closely you’ll see her right eye is not entirely symmetrical, but if you didn’t know something had happened you probably wouldn’t even notice it.

Trinity shows you her little gray hat.
Trinity shows you her little gray hat.

Trinity will be up for adoption soon through Pittsburgh C.A.T. We will do our best to help cats like Trinity, and Buddy and Butterscotch, and Willie and the Peter Pan kittens, and Kennedy even Frankencat, because they all deserve a happy and healthy life no matter where they came from.


Read more stories in my weekly Rescue Stories series
and read about my Rescue Stories series.



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All images and text used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission, although links to your site are more than welcome and are shared. Please ask if you are interested in using and image or story in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of an image or a product including it, check my animal and nature website Portraits of Animals to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit Ordering Custom Artwork for more information on a custom greeting card, print or other item.


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© 2022 | www.TheCreativeCat.net | Published by Bernadette E. Kazmarski

Weekly schedule of features:

Sunday: Essays, Pet Loss, Poetry, The Artist’s Life

Monday: Adoptable Cats, TNR & Shelters

Tuesday: Rescue Stories

Wednesday: Commissioned Portrait or Featured Artwork

Thursday: New Merchandise

Friday: Book Review, Health and Welfare, Advocacy

Saturday: Your Backyard Wildlife Habitat, Living Green With Pets, Creating With Cats

And sometimes, I just throw my hands in the air and have fun!

 
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AfterDinnerNap-Etsy~~~

HCMT/Pittsburgh C.A.T. 2017 Calendar, still a few more left!

Calendar cover.
Calendar cover.

I designed and published this calendar on behalf of these two organizations for which I volunteer and support. All proceeds of sales of this calendar after costs will go directly to our work Making Life Better for Cats Every Day of the Year. Price includes shipping. You’ll find a box to enter your address or special instructions in your shopping cart.

Each month features a cat and its story who we rescued through TNR or rescue from abandonment, neglect or abuse, offered medical treatment, fostering, socialization, and a loving forever home that met their individual needs.

In addition, each month is sponsored with an ad from veterinarians, businesses and individuals who support HCMT and Pittsburgh C.A.T., including five of the veterinarians who regularly take a shift at our clinics to spay and neuter plus pet sitting and pet first aid training so you have ready resources for services you and your pets can use right at your fingertips.

Read more and order.


© 2017 | www.TheCreativeCat.net | Published by Bernadette E. Kazmarski

—

Weekly schedule of features:
Sunday: Essays, Pet Loss, Poetry, The Artist’s Life
Monday: Adoptable Cats, TNR & Shelters
Tuesday: Rescue Stories
Wednesday: Commissioned Portrait or Featured Artwork
Thursday: New Merchandise
Friday: Book Review, Health and Welfare, Advocacy
Saturday: Your Backyard Wildlife Habitat, Living Green With Pets, Creating With Cats
And sometimes, I just throw my hands in the air and have fun!

—

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Bernadette

From health and welfare to rescue and adoption stories, advocacy and art, factual articles and fictional stories, "The Creative Cat" offers both visual and verbal education and entertainment about cats for people who love cats, pets and animals of all species.

8 thoughts on “Rescue Story: Trinity

    • It’s just amazing she could go through all that and come out with no apparent physical or emotional scars, she’s just a happy kitten.

      Reply
  • What a beautiful and heartwarming rescue story. Though I realize some people feel helpless when an animal has such horrific injuries and/or cannot afford the surgeries and care they need to be saved, it always breaks my heart when they are given up (as so many are often euthanized). When we make the commitment to take them into our home and love them, we must be willing to accept full responsibility for their care and well-being. When Lily was hit by a car, she about broke the bank, but I wouldn’t have given up on her for anything. That was when she was four and now she is 18. I can’t even imagine that I might have missed the last 14 years of her life. Wishing Trinity a blessed life with the family who finally gives her the loving home she so deserves and has EARNED!

    Reply
    • Janet, sometimes you’re glad to get an animal out of the hands of someone who clearly shouldn’t have it, those who don’t have that commitment by any stretch of the imagination, though I’d really rather talk the person out of the cat than have a dog attack. I know I could have bought a new car with what I spent on Namir’s cardiomyopathy and congestive heart failure over five years and I really don’t know where it came from, but somehow it did. And sometimes it takes a vet who will work with you. I’m sure this will lead Trinity to the loving forever home she should have.

      Reply
  • LOVE that this clinic and group go above and beyond. Our rescue vet has a “good samaritan” fund to do similar things.

    Reply
    • Jeanne, it’s like a dream come true. I remember trying to patchwork together care for cats I’d rescued or other people did, and even emergency clinics wouldn’t go very far. I’m so happy for little Trinity!

      Reply
  • I am glad she is doing so well. It brought tears to my eyes and pain to my heart to see how much she was injured. You definitely cannot tell by how she looks now.

    Reply
    • Raylene, I just cringed thinking of that delicate little kitten face. I’m so glad she could be healed up and given another chance.

      Reply

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