Diane Foxen came home from her shift in the neonatal intensive care unit and went straight to her bedroom. Foxen, a nurse at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose, had been potentially exposed to the coronavirus at work for the second time.
She isolated herself in her room to protect her sister, who lives with her in her Sunnyvale home. It had been getting more intense at work by the day, and she needed some joy in her life. So she called up the Humane Society Silicon Valley.
Foxen has been fostering sick kittens for the HSSV since 2012, when her veterinarian called to see if she’d be willing to give a temporary home to a terminally ill cat. Smudge, a black and white tuxedo cat named for the birthmark on his nose, was suffering from lymphoma and was given about six months to live. Foxen had another cat at the time who was living with cancer, so she knew what it took to care for a sick cat. Smudge lived with Foxen for three happy years.
Foxen went on to become a designated foster for kittens with ringworm, a fungus that goes away with time and treatment but is highly contagious to other kittens. Many shelters, unable to adequately isolate infected kittens and sterilize the environment, end up putting these kittens to sleep. Foxen takes these kittens in and keeps them in her master bathroom, away from her and her sister’s five adult cats. She bathes them twice a week and gives them their medication, and after anywhere from six weeks to six months, they test negative and can be adopted out.
Foxen says she easily took to caring for sick kittens. She had been fostering cats with Town Cats in Morgan Hill since 2009, a few of which she ended up adopting because she couldn’t say goodbye; she affectionately calls these cats “foster fails.” When the kittens were sick, she found she could use her nursing skills to help understand them.
But her job has gotten more difficult since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out. Her once warm, touchy-feely colleagues can no longer give each other hugs on a bad day. The support she once was able to give and receive is all the more difficult under social distancing protocols.
“Before, if one of our colleagues was having a hard day, we could give them a hug and tell people, ‘Hey, be easy with this person, maybe give him a hug, talk to them, see how they’re doing. They’re having a hard day.’ And now…a lot of people are having a hard day.”
She said it became harder to support other people when she wasn’t receiving support herself. When she called the HSSV, she was looking to get back some of that warmth.
“Kittens are bouncing around, running around, jumping up in the air,” Foxen said. “There’s no way you cannot laugh if you have a kitten or puppy in your life because they are just funny. And in this time of COVID, everybody needs a little bit of funny.”
Foxen slept on an inflatable mattress in the master bathroom with her five newest foster kittens the night she got them. They were wary at first, but by the second night, they were curled up on her chest to sleep. She said they gave her “that contact I haven’t been able to give or get.”
She said the kittens were also able to “absorb a couple tears,” giving her the chance to cry and express all of the frustrations and fears she experienced at work.
Foxen works full time at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center and part time at El Camino Hospital. Her hours vary, but one thing stays constant: She works a lot. On days when she’s not at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, she’ll pick up shifts at El Camino. When things are busy, she’ll go in early or forgo one of her days off. She said she and her colleagues—nurses, doctors, custodial workers, pharmacy techs—are working around the clock to try to deal with the current crisis.
“They say that we’re heroes but actually, especially after that second lockdown where I sheltered away from my sister, these kittens were my heroes,” Foxen said. “They’re giving me that contact that I need. They’re giving me a safe place to cry my tears where I’m not burdening anybody else who has had a hard time with this themselves.”
