u/superlosernerd

I posted here nearly a year ago in a panic over a 16 year old begonia that I had been given after my best friend passed away. The begonia was in rough shape and I was panicking trying to save it.

I got a lot of really great advice from all of you, and thanks to you all, this is where we are one year later!

I had a lot of cuttings not survive, and a couple that only died after being transplanted, but eventually I got some cuttings to take. And while doing so, the mama plant, which I had left for dead, sprouted new leaves and is currently thriving! The tallest part of the plant is the mother plant's regrowth.

I kept one recent cutting that is growing like a weed. You can see it in the green pot in the last picture. It's less of a cutting at this point and more like a tree. I'm trying to figure out what to do with it, since I want to hold onto this one! It's nice that a year later my problem is I have more healthy begonias than I can handle.

I just want to thank this community so much for helping me save this plant. It means so much to me, and I'm really appreciative of all the time complete strangers put in to helping me and my plants!

Our vet happens to be in the same direction as his favorite park. I take a different route to get to the vet, but this time there was a road closure so our route had to start out the same as our park route. He would barely even look at me after we got home, and when he did, this was the expression I got.

In order of pictures you have Ember, Sunny, Jetta, and Dulcet. The white dog is my current dog Archie, and the black dog is my late dog York.

Here's how I got each of them, in order:

Jetta (8yrs, F brown tortico manx) - 8 years ago I had a friend who would watch my dog while I was at work. My friend also fostered animals. One day she was given a 6 month old kitten found on the side of the road. She was clearly the runt of the litter (which is true to this day, she's never grown bigger than 6lbs, despite eating a ton) and they think she was abandoned by her mom due to having some trouble walking. She was terrified of everything and everyone except, somehow, my 75lb massive black dog. Long story short, she bonded to him, and would refuse to eat or do anything when he wasn't around. When I went to pick up my dog one day my friend just handed me the kitten and a bag of cat food and said "for her own good, she's going home with you". And that's how I spent a night googling how to take care of a cat after I had already gotten one.

Sunny & Dulcet (9yrs M Orange tabby, 16yrs F grey tortico) - 3 years ago one of my best friends suddenly passed away, and left behind her two cats. A few weeks after she passed, her family contacted me and said no one else could take them so the cats were mine. No questions asked, just they were now mine. And that was how my cat count went up to 3.

Ember (4yrs black shorthair) - This is a slightly longer story, and the only one I'm not sure if it fully qualifies as the CDS.

2 years ago I received a call from a dog trainer friend about a cat at a local cat rescue having some issues. Ember, despite being the sweetest and cuddliest cat you could imagine, could not be adopted and had been with the rescue for a while. Along with the black cat bias, he also had medical issues that would require a special diet and monitoring. On top of that, he had had a PU surgery, and apparently a male cat without a penis is a deal breaker for some people?? It completely erased so many of his medical issues and made it easier to raise him, but some prospective adopters dropped out when they found that out about him. I don't get people.

My dog trainer friend recommended me for Ember because Jetta is a special needs kitty due to having spinal bifida/manx syndrome with needs similar to Ember's, and my friend knows I'm not bothered by taking care of her. I told my friend I wasn't interested in any more cats. I had enough already.

Well, the people from the rescue just so happened to be there the next time I went to dog training with my friend (my dog Archie is a therapy dog for other reactive dogs, so he helps out) and after talking to them I realized it was basically me or him sitting alone for how many months or years waiting for the right owner. This is the only one I'm not sure if it truly counts as the CDS, since I did make a conscious decision to adopt him, even though I wasn't planning on it. And that's how I got number 4.

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Don't get me wrong, I love my cats and they are very much part of the family. But I didn't ask for any of them, and I'm not asking for any more. I still don't know why I was chosen. But please CDS, no more cats. I don't know what to do with them all.