IAST Challenge 230 - and the Case of Elektra!

♫ Oh, no-no-no-no-no. It's too late,
Baby, it's too late, now darlin' it's too l-a-t-e.... ♪

It is Carol King's old song that always jumps to mind when I am too late for anything. And so it was for last week's IAST challenge #230. I had a sketch of my entry on some scrap paper when the deadline put a stop to my attempt, or maybe I also wasn't too convinced to send anything in. Once again I had distorted the tangles...indeed, they look anything but the real thing, not even Knightsbridge is recognizable as such. So, this piece of 'malpracticed' art is banned to my webpage only! (Ria note, it is layered)

Patterns: Skelter, Funsin, Knichtsbridge

And here one tile I did a while back. Dewd on balls. I think it was for a Dewd challenge in January I also missed out.

Pattern: Dewd

Animal Help Line

I love Viktor. Viktor is a vet in Spain. He and his team are doing amazing jobs in the field of animal rescues. Their motto seems to be: Every life is precious...especially animal lives. Their dedication ends in tons of successes, but then you have that day - that one day - when you end up crying.

Electra! 

Electra was a street cat, no beauty by any standards, but somebody thought it was a great idea to push a small stick through her mouth into her spin to render her paralyzed. Viktor and his team discussed her case and general consensus was that the stick, which had broken in two, had to be removed. BUT! Opinions differed concerning the outcome. Instant death on the table or live-long paralyzes. I followed Elektra's hospitalization through Viktor's video series. I almost thought I was right there, in Spain, with the team, having a voice, too: "Hey guys, the stick has to come out! Take the risk!" They did. OP was successful, we could even see her making a mini sprint on the examination table. All looked promising. Then it happened. They had an emergency case from a cat rescue group, stringent hospital rules were dropped and Electra died a few hours later - the emergency case was infected with the feline distemper illness PANLEUKOPENIA.

Now, why do I write about this case? Besides my warning to all cat owners to make sure their cats are inoculated against panleukopenia I also feel greatly for Viktor and his team. This case had tested their abilities, pushed their limits, they won, just to be belly kicked by a tiny, but persistent virus, that isn't even all that common anymore. But it is still around. Viktor and Jorge, the vets who performed the extremely delicate OP, are devastated!!! Literally!!! Their grief is contagious all the way to Thailand.

Now they fight to keep the other infected patient, Maria, alive. Maria needs urgent surgery. Broken hip and leg, but is too weak to go under.

Maria!

If you would like to know more about Viktor, or know more about Elektra and her case...click here.

Pet owners, you may want to give your pet a kiss and a hug right now.

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