Friday, February 15, 2013

 
Here is my wife's cat Peewee. Cute thing isn't he?
Well, we have had some problems recently. We have one other cat named Ella and they both required major vet work, around two thousand five hundred dollars. I am asking for any help to cover at least some of the vet bills. He was diagnosed with stomatitis and was required to have a lot of his teeth removed.
(Peewee looking for Sushi after we had to have him shaved.
Unrelated to the recent situation)


This is Ella.
We adopted her from the Animal Protective League (a local animal shelter) when she was 8 years old.
She had her 9th birthday in October. She was diagnosed with cholangiohepatitis shortly after Peewee was healing.
(Ella relaxing and sticking out her tongue)

The story starts on December 23rd at around 2:00 am. Peewee had been running away from his food for over a day. My wife started getting nervous about Peewee's health and at that time our only option was the emergency vet clinic. We took him up there in the cold and they were able to see Peewee quickly. The doctor immediately noticed something wrong with his gums and teeth. His gums were really inflamed and he had a broken tooth. The doctor told us he might have Stomatitis or some other other dental disorder. He was given some antibiotics, an appetite stimulant, and a anti-inflammatory.  That same day we took him back around 11:00 pm to get him a longer lasting pain killer and a syringe to feed him. We made an appointment to take him to his regular vet on Christmas Eve.
I brought him in and told them what the doctor at the emergency clinic told me about the inflamed gums and the one broken tooth. They couldn't do anything that day but we made an appointment for a teeth cleaning on December 26th (a Wednesday) so they could examine his mouth, clean, and pull any bad teeth. Well Wednesday came and he had the cleaning and we were told everything was good and no teeth had to be pulled. Peewee came home and for about a day he was eating normally again that night but by Thursday he was not eating again. I took him up Friday and they kept him overnight to observe him and feed him. Came back Saturday to pay and pick him up. They were not sure why he wasn't eating except maybe he was stressed.
My wife and I were at our wits end and we had no idea what to do. We had to syringe feed him every day now. We made an appointment at another veterinary clinic for a consultation. This was on January 4th. The new doctor, Dr. Roach at North Royalton Animal Hospital, took one look in his mouth and noticed the stomatitis right away. However, we had to wait for surgery because they don't like to put animals under so soon after they have been put under before (the initial cleaning at the old vet required anesthesia). They also wanted to bring down the inflammation so the sutures could take hold better. For 3 weeks he received pain killers, antibiotics and laser treatments for his gums. The laser treatment worked tremendously! On January 21st he finally had his surgery. They had to pull 13 teeth, including the broken one we told the other vet about. We picked him up later that day and he has been eating like normal ever since.

Now comes Ella:
Friday February 1st around 10:00 AM my wife and I were awakened by a crying cat.
We first thought it was Peewee but he was in bed looking like he had no idea what was going on.
Ella was crying like she was about to cough up a hair ball but only a little phlegm and hair came up but she continued crying. It was horrible loud painful crying. She was on the kitchen floor laying on her belly with her back legs splayed out. I rushed her to North Royalton Animal Hospital.
Ella had to have blood work and some X-rays. Dr. Fortney was our doctor that day. When we received the blood work back, Ella's blood was normal but her liver functions were off the charts. Literally. They had to send her blood out to another lab in order to get values beyond what they were capable of checking for. It could have been one of two things: liver cancer or an infection. The only way to be sure would be an ultrasound but that would have cost two thousand dollars and we couldn't afford that. The X-rays showed it was likely an infection so we chose the infection treatment and hoped that was the cause. We had to leave Ella for five days so she could receive treatment right away. On Saturday Feb 2nd we went to visit Ella and she looked well. We were able to take her home on Tuesday the 5th since her blood work had greatly improved. Ella had to take a liver supplement and antibiotics. Her blood was rechecked and all of her liver values were almost normal.

All of this cost us around three thousand dollars.
If anyone would like to donate money to help cover the bills I have a Paypal donate button.    


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