Christina Ha

Baby Corn is really trying. #kitten #cutekitten #bottlebabykitten #blackkitten #kittensoftiktok

This healed his inner child. #catdadha #dad #innerchildhealing #parent

15 years old and perfect. #oldmannuji #fospice #seniorcat

He earned his name by getting more plumpy every week. #greykitten #graykitten #cutekittens #kittenlove #catsoftiktok #fyp #plumpelstiltskin #creatorsearchinsights

We named him Baby Corn for being underdeveloped. #kitten #blackkitten #orphankitten #bottlebaby #braincell

It's taken me over two weeks to work up the energy to tell Tofu's story. There isn't much of a story to tell, except that she was very sick and @Meow Parlour didn't have her for very long. If anyone is familiar with the grimace scale for cats, I could see that she was uncomfortable and her pain level was increasing rapidly. I realized that she needed immediate intervention so @Simon Tung took us to the ER and we discovered that her already terrible kidney values had doubled in a short period of time. When a cat comes into our care, we often don't know a lot about them. @Animal Care Centers of NYC does an excellent job collecting surrender notes to pass on to the rescues and adopters who take in these pets. Because the notes from her previous person didn't match the age or our medical observations for this cat, I told the ER vet that I couldn't answer their questions about her history. Needing to surrender a pet is devastating. But on the other side of it is this - I am a human who cried over a cat I barely knew. I wished that she had gotten a better chance. I wished that I had some idea of how long she had been sick so that we could have taken better educated guesses - about how irreversible the kidney damage was, whether her heart murmur had always been present or was a new symptom, or even how much she had previously weighed. There was a part of me that fantasized that non-surgical options may have been available if she had gotten an ultrasound earlier. But Tofu was very sick and they said that even if she survived a $25k surgery, she would still be hospice. We might find out that her kidneys were so far gone that she would still only have a few uncomfortable weeks left. I wished for many things. But the one thing I wished for most was for Tofu to no longer feel pain and that was the only thing I could give her. When I spoke to the vet about what I wanted to do with her afterwards, I asked if her case could be a learning opportunity and she said yes. My hope is that they would be able to learn from her. It was our small way to make sure Tofu left behind a legacy. We love you, Tofu. Thank you to everyone who supports Meow Parlour to allow us to take a chance on cats like Tofu.

Moo Deng is gone. I knew this day was coming, but I didn't expect it to happen so soon. Heart disease is complicated in cats and I learned from Jack that it could go from seemingly fine to an emergency in seconds so we often don't have a lot of control in when we say goodbye. My great fear around losing Moo Deng was that it would happen when I wasn't home and that I would always be left with the uncertainty of whether he suffered. But I was home. When we came home Friday night, he was having a hard time breathing so I put him in the oxygen cage. Simon and I ate dinner on the floor next to him. His breathing normalized after half an hour and after 2 hours, he was able to breathe in normal air. I slept on the floor next to him and woke up at 3 am because my back hurt. I reached out to pet him and he was the Moo Deng I knew. He ate a churu. He crawled on my face to nudge me, his deep purrs were so loud in the quiet of the night and it made me giggle. We cuddled. He did two of my favorite things - he stood with his feet in the litter box and peed on the floor and made his little wail asking to be let out of the bedroom so he could be on the couch with his friends. Yesterday morning, his breathing was heavier than I liked so I put him on oxygen while I brushed my teeth. I went out to grab him a snack and was getting ready to give it to him when he had something that looked like a seizure and passed. I had recorded his breathing a minute earlier, something I do so I can objectively compare his breathing in different circumstances, and I had managed to catch the last moments of his life. So I can tell you this. I was with him. He did not know it was happening (nor did I). And it was fast. If there was any part of him that knew this was coming, at 3 am, he felt well enough to tell me he loved me. I had recorded and prepared a few videos of Moo Deng that I didn't get a chance to share and if you don't mind, I will do so over the next few days. I thought we would have more time so I had been in no rush to post, but now I want to make sure he is remembered because my little man with a broken heart deserves it. You allowed us to take in Moo Deng's entire litter and give them the care they needed. I am grateful that your support allowed us to give him the support he needed. Thank you @Simon Tung for letting me adopt the best kitten ever. #moodeng #petloss #grief #congenitalheartdefect

Good job, Moo Deng. I miss you. #kitten #familybusiness #catdadha #SmallBusiness #cattoys #cat

The morning after my grandmother passed, I found my mom sitting at our kitchen table. Caring for my grandmother had taken up such a large part of her mornings for so many years that she didn't know what to do. So she was sitting there, processing the loss, and slowly shedding the label of my grandmother's caretaker. I set up this special area for Moo Deng in our bedroom. It allowed me to give him oxygen whenever he needed the boost. We didn't use it often, but it stayed out permanently so that if he needed it, he didn't have to wait. In NYC, that amount of space in any apartment is considered precious and it was all his. For the last two days, I reflexively leaned as I walked past it, making space for an oxygen cage we no longer needed. This morning, I didn't have anywhere to be and so I started to take it down. I am no longer Moo Deng's caretaker and I never will be again. There is something very sad about this process of acknowledging this loss by removing the evidence of the extraordinary measures it took to keep him alive. What I didn't expect was that I as I was getting ready to start, Nabi would wail on the other side of the door, begging to be let in. It wasn't until I realized that she was pacing around and checking all the hiding spots that it occurred to me that she thought maybe Moo Deng was in the room. She sat in my lap and we cried together. When she was ready to leave, I was ready to start. To honor him, I needed to put away everything and make space for the next cat. When I finished, I got an email from the shelter asking me to take in 3 neonates. I looked at the pictures of their ears and decided they were close enough in age to Plumpy that I didn't bother reading their records. Much to my surprise, when I loaded them into the incubator, I noticed that one was half the size of the others. Thank you, Moo Deng. #petloss #grief #catrescue

My dad promised to buy her a bigger ring when they moved to America, but it never happened. If you were to ask my mom, being able to have 4 children is better than any ring. #catdadha #parents #anniversary #marriage #asianparents #immigrantparents

Replying to @she.is.kate Baby Corn wants to know if you will accept this as payment. #babycorncat #kitten #blackkitten

The love doesn't go away just because you physically aren't here anymore.

Moo Deng has congenital heart disease so he is 4 lbs at 10 months old, but he did eat a full lunch and dinner after this talk. #asianparents #kitten