Casper entered my life on my birthday 10 years ago, October 28th 2015. Since then, he has been my best friend, my sweet baby boy, and my annoying little man. He charms everyone that meets him, being so sweet that he's turned multiple cat haters into cat lovers. He even has "very friendly" written on his record at the vet!

For the past year, Casper has been dealing with chronic congestion and sinus infections. He is always a little snotty, with mucus in his throat that causes him to cough, gag, and throw up from the nausea. He breathes out of his mouth because he can't breathe out of his nose, causing him to develop some really stinky breath.

In short, I created this gofundme to help cover the procedure to diagnose why he's sick and any treatments he may need afterwards. Casper will be getting a Rhinoscopy done at the Blue Pearl Animal Hospital in Hoover to determine the root cause of his infection and sinus issues. This procedure will involve sending a camera inside of his nose to hopefully determine the cause of his illness, allowing us to focus on specific treatments instead of making guesses. They will take tissue, skin, and blood samples to test for many different diseases, conditions, and even cancers.

This is not a cheap procedure, being upward of $3,000 just for the Rhinoscopy, not including any treatments that will follow. There is also the chance that if we run into complications, we may need to give him a CT scan, which can add another $1000 to the entire procedure. I have already paid $800 of this to get his bloodwork and other prior testing complete. This procedure costs more than I make in a month, so truly anything will help. You can see a breakdown of the bill below.

He used to love being cradled like a baby and getting his belly rubbed but he hates it now. Nowadays, when I move him onto his back he freaks out and will grab whatever he can to right himself, because when he's on his back he can't breathe through the mucus in his throat. He's not on death's door, but he's obviously suffering and uncomfortable and it makes me so sad to see him like this. His existence is defined by what I do for him, and I can't let him suffer.

You can read more specifics about everything we've tried below.

In January, he went to the vet because he had begun sneezing and developing congestion. He had a fever and received fluids and a breathing treatment. At the followup appointment, he was still sick and was prescribed antibiotics. The antibiotics helped clear up his worst symptoms, but he was still congested. All year, we have gone back and forth to the vet, being prescribed medications that helped alleviate Casper's symptoms but never fully knocked out what made him sick.

In March, he was put on allergy medication in case he was suffering from allergies, alongside anti-nausea medication to help with the nausea he was experiencing from post-nasal drip. In April, he was put on another antibiotic. In June, I switched vets for a second opinion. They told me that Casper has been on every antibiotic that would typically treat something like this except for one, so we tried that last one. Again, the same thing happened; he got better for a short period of time then worsened once he stopped taking it.

Just a note, I have a second cat and she is not sick. She has never displayed any kind of sickness similar to Casper's, meaning it's not a contagious infection that he caught somewhere. We have been shooting in the dark because we don't know the root cause of his infection.

His weight has fluctuated through all of this too. In August 2024 he was 10lbs, but when I took him to the vet in July, he had dropped down to 7lbs. The mucus in his throat causes nausea and the snot prevents him from smelling his food. While on the last round of antibiotics, we were given appetite stimulants, saline drops for his nose, and we focused on getting his weight back up, which worked briefly. He went back up to 8.5 lbs while on the antibiotics, but he has lost weight again due to his illness coming back.

He's still relatively alert and friendly, but he spends most of his time sleeping. Sometimes he looks at me and I can just tell that he doesn't feel good. I have vet records and can provide any proof needed for this. Please help me take care of my baby boy :(