Abbey and Mystique's Heartfelt Plea for Help

Hello, family and friends. Let me start out by saying that I wouldn’t be asking for this favor if it weren’t something that is extremely important to me. I’m a huge cat guy. I’ve had cats my entire life and through my love of cats, I have turned my family into cat lovers as well. ANYBODY that has a love for their pets know that the loss of them is a dagger to the heart unlike any other, and I’m trying to do anything I can to save my family from feeling that pain again.

Shortly before our daughter Abbey turned three we decided it was time to get her a cat of her own. Our oldest cat STILL hadn’t warmed up to her after three years and that upset her/us. We thought it was best to get a kitten that could grow up side by side with her so that the kitten would always know what it was like to have a little kid around and they could grow up together. The plan went perfectly for a few weeks and the two of them were getting along very well. Unfortunately, Valkyrie the kitten met a very unfortunate freak accident and we had to explain death to Abbey as best as we could without scarring the poor child. It took us a while to get over that (Especially given the circumstances) and we added yet another urn to our house.

It took us quite a while before we were able to move on as a family, but the following May, after hearing how much she missed having a kitten around for a while now, Jonna and I took Abbey to the Naperville Humane Society to adopt a new kitten. That’s when we met Mystique. Jonna fell in love immediately. She got along WONDERFULLY with Abbey and the two became fast friends. In the year that we’ve had her, the two became almost inseparable. Quite often we see Mystique has jumped into bed with Abbey and they sleep together. If Abbey is playing on the floor, it’s almost a guarantee that Mystique is right by her side wanting in on the action too. Abbey helps me feed her and has even tried to give her a “Bath” a time or two (Mystique didn’t mind at all, but I had to intervene because cats and hand soap don’t really mix). Abbey likes to sit on my lap often to watch TV or to play video games, and if Abbey is up with me, it’s a guarantee that Mystique is right there with us. I even started calling us the “Three Amigos” which Abbey LOVES.

Life was going great up until January. I was off of work because it was a Friday, and being cold and dreary out, we were staying in for the day. Mystique had been sleeping by Jonna’s feet while she worked and had been there all day. Jonna got up to get herself some lunch, and Mystique tried to jump up in her office chair as she often does. She didn’t jump, though…she instead climbed up with an extreme amount of effort and crying in pain. Anybody that knows cats know that they have to be in a LOT of pain to actually show signs of it. I called the vet immediately and got her seen that afternoon.

They did X-rays and told us that she had developed a disease called “Femoral Head and Neck Necrosis” which basically meant that due to unknown factors, blood flow in her left hip was getting restricted which was causing the bone between her ball joint and the main part of her femur to die. She needed surgery to remove the “Neck” and ball joint from her femur. Even without that connection, the Vet assured us that she would still live a long and normal life as a new artificial joint would naturally form where the ball joint had been. Though it was a costly surgery, we couldn’t bear to lose another family member and I refused to put another urn in our house if we could at all prevent it. Most importantly, I didn’t want Abbey to lose her best friend.

The surgery was performed, Mystique made it through with flying colors, and after a few weeks of recovery time, we had our little carpet goblin back again. It was great seeing her being basically normal again. Unfortunately, that only lasted a few months until we noticed that same behavior that she was displaying back in January. We didn’t know if she was experiencing pain or setback in the surgical leg or if something else was up, but we took her out to get looked at again. It was our worst fear. Though the doctor told us it was very unlikely to happen to the other leg, and even though the other leg looked EXTREMELY healthy in the x-rays just a few months prior, she had developed it in her right hind leg as well.

After conferring with both our Vet and the surgical specialist, they said that the same surgery would be necessary again on the opposite leg, but the specialist said that the good news was that this only ever happens in the femurs and this is the last one she’s got. In all their vast experience of performing this surgery on animals, they have never seen anything like this appear anywhere else in their bodies.

The problem is?... we’re tapped out. We’re still paying back the first surgery from the line of credit that we had to take out to be able to afford that. I don’t take doing something like this lightly as I have ALWAYS prided myself on being self-sufficient, but I’d do anything for my family and ESPECIALLY for Abbey. We’ve already come this far with trying to help her best friend have the best chance at a normal life that I can’t give up on the poor, small, innocent creature now. She is the sweetest of kittens and we have come to love her oh so much in one year of being part of our family. We can’t give up on her…we need your help…