Hello all,

Many of you know Pepper, our feisty calico girl. We got her as a baby in 2019, and she’s been our girl ever since.

The past few days she’s been throwing up clear foam in the morning, but otherwise acting totally fine — eating, drinking, playing, etc.

Today, on November 23, it was different. Pepper is a very food-motivated cat, and today her bowl was a mess — still with dry food and it was everywhere. When I brought her back to her bowl, she couldn’t keep it in her mouth and was struggling. Her tail was between her legs and she kept trying to hide.

I brought her to the Veterinary Urgent Care in East Providence, where they performed a sedated x-ray and visualized a 2-centimeter foreign object. Unfortunately, that is too big for her to pass on her own and she will require either an endoscopy or abdominal surgery to remove it. We will be bringing her in tomorrow, on the 24th, to have it removed.

The issue now is the cost — the estimates for just the endoscopy are between $2,500 and $3,000, and for the surgery around $6,000.

Our pet insurance covers 80% of costs related to issues like this, but the problem is having enough up front to manage the expenses.

Any amount of money would go directly towards the cost of this surgery (whether abdominal or endoscopic) or the things that insurance doesn’t cover (i.e., diagnostic exams).

I understand that this is a big ask and it comes right at the holidays, but any amount of money would help us take care of Miss Peppy.