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Save Charlie

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Hi, if you're reading this, I don't know who you are, but I'm so grateful you're here.  My baby needs your help, and I'm all out of options. 

 

Charlie is six years old, and he's been my everything since the day we found him.  He was abandoned at my mom's job when he was a kitten, and my mom found him stuck under a fence, crying.  We had too many cats but she felt too bad for him to leave him; there was just something about him, something sweet and heartbreaking, and she knew he was ours. 

 

He's a special cat, and has had problems from the start.  He has really high anxiety, which makes him pull out his fur and pee on things, and after a while we realized a lot of this stress was coming from the other animals in the house.  Basically, he's a cat who doesn't like other cats, and is only really relaxed when he's alone, so we came to the decision to let him live in my room.  As far as I'm concerned, it was the best decision we ever made.   

 

Charlie and I bonded really fast, and I feel like we could kind of relate to each other in our problems.  Maybe that's weird to say, because he's just a cat, but he's never been "just a cat" to me.  He's like another part of myself; always in my lap when I'm on the computer, letting me cuddle him like a stuffed animal at night.  He's been with me through so many hard times, takes care of me when I'm sick, and helped me through getting diagnosed with depression.  It's like he knew that one of my problems was getting out of bed, and he learned the sound of my alarm and would stand on me and meow in my face until I got up. 

 

We learned each other's problems and adapted to them, helped each other, and I haven't been without him since the day we moved him into my room.

 

But now he's sick.  Very, very sick.  He's helped me through so much, and now, when I really need to help him, I can't. 

 

He has what's called fatty liver disease, which is the most severe liver disease cats can get.  Here's a description of it from petmd.com: "Normally, when a body is undernourished or starved, the body automatically moves fat from its reserves to the liver to be converted into lipoproteins for energy. Cat's bodies are not designed to convert large stores of fat, so when a cat is in starvation mode, the fat that is released to the liver is not processed efficiently, resulting in a fatty and low functioning liver. As the fat accumulates in the liver it becomes swollen and turns yellow. Because it is not able to process red blood cells efficiently, the yellow pigment that makes up a portion of the red blood cell is released into the bloodstream, causing a yellowing of the eyes. If not treated promptly, [fatty liver disease] can lead to various complications and eventually death."

 

This took him down so fast.  Just a week ago, he was still climbing on my shoulders and being his usual, happy self.  There were signs, small ones, but it's only in retrospect that I can see them.  To me, it seemed that one day he was fine, and the next he couldn't get up. 

 

After we got the diagnosis, we tried our best to treat him at home, but he had already reached a point where he couldn't quite eat on his own.  The way to conquer fatty liver disease is with food, and we tried our best to force feed him, but each time I feared that he wasn't getting enough, or that we weren't doing it often enough, to break him out of this starvation mode he was in. 

 

We had to take him back to the vet daily for IV treatments, and even the techs noticed his daily decline.  Yesterday, Friday, the vet ended up saying, "If he survives the weekend."  This made me panic, because everything I read about fatty liver disease made it sound like, while serious, it was treatable and something that can and will be survived.  But I just knew he wasn't getting the maximum care at home, so I asked the vet to keep him over the weekend. 

 

Today, the vet called and told me Charlie had declined further, couldn't even stand on his own, though he looked clearer: his eyes were wide and alert, and he was tracking people with his eyes and crying at them specifically.  But overall, he had reached a point where I needed to decide to put him down, or give them the okay to do everything they can to save him, which can end up costing up to $5,000. 

 

I'm not putting him down.  Ever.  Not unless it reaches a point where he is in unbearable pain, or some kind of definite suffering.  At this point, he feels no pain, it's just the weakness keeping him down.  And based on his behavior when he was here, I could see him trying to continue his normal routine and act like everything is fine.  He wants to live.  He wants to try.  And I'm not going to stop that because of money.  I don't want there to ever come a time where we have to stop treatment just because of that.  Charlie has done so much for me, even just by being here and loving me, that I just can't give up on him. 

 

At this point, I'm begging.  Honestly begging.  I don't have a job right now, and I'm paying for school, and I just don't have the funds to do this.  I may not need $5,000, I may need more; I just don't know at this point.  But I want to have the money here, so it can just be one less obstacle for us.  So even if I don't hit the goal, this really is a case where every single dollar will help, so I can give him the best care he can get.

 

Please, please help my cat.  I don't know what else to say, or how else to stress how much I'm just sitting here in tears begging you for help, but I love him so much, and I can't imagine going on without doing everything I can for him.  

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  • Anonymous
    • $5 
    • 11 yrs
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Organiser

Sarah C
Organiser
Conway, AR

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