My name is Ethel the kitty, and I need some help. For many years I lived in a large colony of community cats near San Francisco Airport. Life there was pretty good for us; every day one of our caretakers would come to give us food. I always came to greet the caretakers because I loved to have them pet me. Some days I wanted their pets more than the food!

One day I was walking and a car came by fast. I tried to run away, but it hit my left foreleg. My leg hurt a lot and I could not walk on it, so I held it up high. The next day the caretaker who came to feed us saw that I was injured and told everyone else. I was so scared and hurt that I hid for several days.

But soon another one of my caretakers got me and took me to a vet. It was a little scary, but I liked the vet and she said it was hard to hear my heart because my purr is so loud.

The vet said that both of the bones in my leg were badly broken, and some of my toes were broken, too. The vet put a splint on my leg and wrapped it up.

I stayed with two of my caretakers who had a cage for me while my leg was healing. After a while I was able to be outside of the cage and they would let me sit on their laps. I really liked that.

And every week for two months we went to see the nice vet and she checked my leg. But I had some bad luck. After the splint was taken off, I still couldn’t walk on my leg. The vet said that my leg had not healed and would need to be amputated.

Then I got some more bad news. The vet also found that my teeth were very bad and would need to be removed.  Gosh! I had to have two surgeries.

First, all of my teeth were pulled and several weeks later I had my leg amputated. My caretakers said I was a real trouper!

Now that I am a toothless three-legged cat, my caretakers did not want me to go back outside to the colony. So, now I live with one of them and I get all of the lap time that I want. I get around just fine and eat lots of delicious canned food.

Will you please help me pay my vet bills so that all those who helped me can go on to help others?

Thank you, and meow!

Love,
Ethel


This is me before I lost my leg...


This is me while we had a cast on, hoping my leg would heal. Unfortunately, it did not.