Bonanzle, Blogs and Censorship... A word to the wise

Well I guess the Lucy and her babies blog has now fallen to an all time low. As many of you know there was a chip in page created for Lucy and her Kittens, upon the advice of many well intentioned people. I was so very careful not to post it on Bonanzle as it is a violation of their forum policies. Throughout time, a very well meaning friend who did not know it was a violation posted it on a forum thread. The posts suddenly began being deleted. My husband not knowing the exact rules re-posted the thread. I immediately notified support at Bonanzle and I thought they might have the common sense to realize the mistakes. I am not a newbie to the rules but my husband is.

On Bonanzle we have had a lot of fun posting pictures of Joey and Lucy and all the kids. We shared so many antics all in the spirit of giving back to all those pet lovers and especially to those that showed us so much support. There is one thread that I will assume will be pulled shortly that has nothing but discussed and showed pictures of Lucy http://www.bonanzle.com/forums/10/topics/128289 it alone has had almost 6700 views and is on the 24th page. It is now in the drama section of the forums

I now find out that our blogs are censored by Bonanzle. The night before last, I responded to a new seller that I was following her and stated :

I'm following! I need something for beyond dry sensitive skin! here's my blog http://lucyslovesong.blogspot.com/

This resulted in my being dmv'd for solicitation of charity. I'm assuming there's a witch hunt of non-pet lovers that have decided to make it their mission to follow my every move. Management has decided to censor my blog citing :

"The reason why your most recent post was disemvoweled is because the link to your blog which has a donation which ties in with the thread in Drama that we have discussed before. I know that from our earlier emails about this that that was not your intent but we need to be consistent with our forum guidelines so that we can remain fair to all. "

So be advised to pick and chose your words ever so wisely. A link to my blog has cost me a one month suspension on Bonanzle.com. Granted it is only a suspension to the forums however I suspect that this will not be the end of it. I can live without a forum..it was cute and it was fun. We were some of the first people to ever join Bonanzle and have stuck by them thru thick and thru thin. Defended and offered excuses when things did not seem right. When they said they wouldn't be doing advertising, a group got to together to try and do some advertising at our own expense..my contribution was to do 7 videos advertising Bonanzle. When the shipping calculators have not worked I have stuck my neck out as an advocate of those who's sales depended on them. I could go on and on but why bother. Bonanzle wants to be the friendliest and most social e-commerce site out there..but only at their discretion as to what you can say or think even outside the walls of their site, which is so disheartening.. So that you know, this is the Bonanzle policy that in is not listed anywhere until it hits you:

"Please keep in mind that, per the Bonanzle forum policies, your forum privileges may be temporarily or permanently disabled for repeated forum violations. Number of violations in 3-month time window Consequence

1 Warning email

2 Warning email

3 Forum posting privileges removed for 24 hours*

4 Forum posting privileges removed for one week*

5+ Forum posting privileges removed for one month*

Your current count of violations in the last three months is 6. This translates to your account being disabled from forum posting through 10/13/10."

We never received an email warning, much less a 24 hour suspension or even for a week. We got slammed for a month yet they cite they are being fair? Do they read everyone's blog's? Or have we been singled out? 

I encourage any comments on this. Feel free to sign in as anonymous as I know many are afraid of voicing their feelings out of fear. I now know how that really feels. I expect this blog will only get me in further trouble with Bonanzle and will probably be told I might be happier elsewhere.

To all the special Aunts and Uncles on Bonanzle, our Facebook followers/supporters and those on Pet Finders, again we thank you from the very bottom of our hearts. You helped to give Lucy and her babies the care they so desperately needed and without you they would have been going to a shelter with a very uncertain future. We will be continuing with this blog as it has become so popular. Bonanzle doesn't want it..so be it, it's their loss.

We almost lost our Lucy.......

Being as I'm not feeling so good I'm having my human mom write for me

On Wednesday, Aug 25th, Lucy and the kittens were all scheduled for their sterilization. The babies are just about 10 weeks old and weigh between 2.5 and 4 pounds. As expected we were a nervous wreck for our new little family as we dropped them off at 8am and couldn't pick them up till the following morning at 7:30am. Bright and early Thursday morning we were first in line to pick up our crew. Couldn't understand why they kept avoiding us and left us till last.

They came out with all the carriers except Lucy's. Babies were all being sent home but there had been a problem with Lucy. Briefly told that she had ripped out her sutures overnight and that they were stabilizing her for a return to surgery to see what happened. Spent most of the day making call after call to see what was going on. If it were not for all of you dear friends we would have been even more more upset than what we were.

Finally got thru and was told we could pick Lucy up at 3pm. When spaying they cut or separate the uterine horns and the uterine body

Once the cuts are made they are closed by what they call ligatures.

After her surgery all seemed well with Lucy. Staff is there very late at nite and return early in the am with a few hours of no staffing there. When they returned in the morning they found Lucy in a pile of blood and in critical condition. Took them 8 boxes of gauze pads to just soak up the blood pooled around her, put her on oxygen, IV fluids and a heating pad with a tech holding a pressure bandage on her incision.

Apparently the ligatures on the 2 ascending cuts were fine. However on the descending cut, the ligatures knots untied and she began bleeding in to her belly. When the pressure in her belly became too much, Lucy ripped out her sutures, inside and out, to let the blood drain out and she continued to bleed until they found her. Once stabilized, which took most of the day, they took her back into surgery. Again another incision to find out the problem, re-tie the ligatures, double check the other ones, and close her back up. I think they knew we would not let her stay there another night alone and unsupervised.

Back home on Thursday evening, our poor Lucy was an absolute mess. The anesthesia and pain meds for 2 days in a row really took it's toll. She was so dazed and almost confused, any slight noise just startled the daylights out of her. In between we were also monitoring the babies and trying to console our other pets who had no idea what was going and why they weren't allowed in certain rooms.

That night, Lucy was frantic and the only way to calm her was to hold her. She wanted nothing to do with a cage or an elizabethan collar. So I stayed up and held her for 4 hours straight just gently talking to her. She let her self relax. Managed to try the cage one more time for about 20 minutes, but went back to holding. So the entire night I just held her to my chest with her head tucked under my chin and let her sleep.

By Friday morning she was still groggy but very anxious about her kittens, we periodically took her in to see that they were ok and sleeping. By this time all the kittens had rallied around. Only one of the little females was a bit shocky at first, but holding her most of Wednesday night calmed her down. She was the only one that seemed to experience any pain but that seemed to subside by Thursday nite.

This post has taken me days to get completed..it's now Sunday morning and things are beginning to look up. Last night Lucy was just kind of blank and staring into space. We wrapped her tummy in a towel and sat her on the couch beside me and let the kittens out. 4 of the 5 just kind of zipped by as they were more intent on just running themselves ragged. The 5th kitten, was the little female who was initially kind of shocky. Her and Lucy just seemed to melt in to each other. Nuzzling and bathing her baby till she was soaked, Lucy seemed almost back to normal. Normal will take time as she is still run down from blood loss and tires very easily but at this time the things are finally looking up.

I'm tired but oh so much better

This is Lucy's belly today, 4 days after the double surgery. She is still quite swollen and bruised. She may not appear swollen but she had lost so much weight that it almost makes her look normal. Unfortunately it's all swelling on her tummy and inner legs

    

Here's the babies resting up

except for this guy who's feeding his fat little face again. He's the biggest at 4 pounds

Our sincerest thanks and gratitude to all our extended family on Bonanzle and the Pet Finders Forum for their many prayers and good wishes for Lucy's recovery. If it had not been for you all, we would have never survived ourselves much less Lucy. Such a great and loving bunch of people that it is our pleasure to call them part of our family. So many, many thanks and undying gratitude for those that sent donations to help with the mounting bills, mainly food bills now. Just this family is consuming 18 cans of Fancy Feast per day!....may God bless you all for helping raise this family of felines..these are your babies too! We love them all to death and have only wanted the best for them

On Lucy's behalf...many heartfelt kitty kisses and hugs to you all,

Mary & Russ

Lucy & her Babies

Sofy & Joey

Sammy, Jessy & Billy