Help with Gerald's Vet Bills

Hi Everyone—

We’re reaching out to our friends and family members for help with emergency vet expenses for our cat, Gerald.

Gerald is 3 years old. We adopted him and his sister, Triss, in February 2020 when they were still kittens and had been surrendered by their original caregivers.

Gerald loves belly scratches, chirping at birds, parkouring when he has the zoomies, and attacking Triss when she least expects it.

Gerald is derpy and loves to knock things over and then run away afterward.

Last month, Gerald stopped eating and drinking water and lost weight quickly. He also wasn’t acting like himself (listless, no zoomies, wasn’t grooming himself). We took him to the vet, which led to a month of us taking him back routinely for different tests and treatments. Although Gerald initially seemed to respond well to an appetite stimulant medication, he eventually stopped eating and drinking again, losing more weight and becoming increasingly unwell. During this month, our regular vet was not clear or active in communicating with us and was non-responsive when we tried to let the staff know Gerald was feeling worse. As a result, we spent more than $1,500 in the past month with this vet clinic, with Gerald worse off than when we initially brought him in for care.

We decided to take him to an Emergency vet clinic earlier this week, where they re-ran some tests and found that he was severely dehydrated, lost 25% of his body weight, and had a possible kidney infection. They sent us home with antibiotics and instructed us to bring him back in a few days to check his bloodwork and see whether his health was improving.

When we took him back a few days later (7/22/2022), his bloodwork was still concerning, and he had developed a fever. They did an ultrasound, and found that his kidneys were really inflamed, and he might be suffering from kidney failure. The vet told us that the best chance of him surviving would be to hospitalize him. However, the vet was not hopeful that Gerald will fully recover, and we do not have a clear answer for what the path ahead looks like.

Regardless of how much time we have left with him, we plan on making him comfortable and ensuring he feels loved and cared for.

While we are trying to stay hopeful and accept whatever happens, we have been left with more than $7,000 worth of vet bills, with $5,500 billed from this week alone. The vet bills span diagnostic tests, exams, antibiotics, and a 48-hour inpatient stay in the ER vet clinic.

This has all happened so quickly—Gerald has never had any acute medical issues before, and his diagnosis went from a possible UTI to kidney failure within a few weeks. And while we never stopped communicating with our vet and have taken him in every week, his condition has only worsened.

We are confused and scared—not only about Gerald’s well-being and time left with us, but also about how we will manage the expenses we’ve accrued from this experience.

We don’t have pet insurance for either of our cats, as they both have congenital heart conditions (which don’t impact their health) that disqualify them from coverage. While we have a CareCredit account open for expenses, we have reached our limit and have scrambled to cover the costs by other means. We've asked both vet clinics for financial assistance options (with no response or help from either). While we are still looking for external financial assistance for emergency veterinary care, we have not had any luck finding a program or fund we would be eligible for.

We are putting ourselves and our situation out there, and we are asking for monetary support from our community to help cover the expenses of Gerald's care.

If you’re willing to donate to us, any amount would be super helpful and appreciated. If you cannot donate at this time, but would like to lend us compassionate support or kind words, we will gladly and gratefully accept them as well.

Thank you for reading.

— Ross & Renee