Fat Chuck needs his wee willy winky cut off

Fat Chuck is a delightful, wonderful cat. He's a big, 18 pound gentle giant of a good boy. Affectionate, playful, bright, and full of unique personality traits. I've often said "he's the coolest cat I've ever had".

Last week, we noticed a change in behaviour and realized he was struggling to pee. After many harrowing hours and a trip to the emergency vet (because of course this stuff always happens after hours), it was determined that he needs a very expensive surgery.

The update on Fat Chuck is not great. Twice now, they've catheterized him and kept him overnight, and when they remove the catheter, he still cannot pee on his own. He now needs a surgery called a perineal urethrostomy, which is a removal of some penile tissue and a widening of his urethra. This will be a life-saving surgery for him, because without it he cannot pee.

The problem, as with all things in this world, is money. The hospital he is at quoted what I will conservatively call an "astronomical" price, a number so high that it caused us both to gasp. It's an impossible number (five digits).

We called our regular vet, and they quoted us a far, far more reasonable price ($1900 to $2900) but they cannot get him in for days.

The cost of keeping him at the hospital he's at, overnight, cathetherized, is also expensive as hell, but we have no choice, because he needs to be cathetherized until he can get surgery.

We have called multiple clinics and most of them either don't do the surgery, or cannot (booked for days or even weeks out).

The hospital that my vet recommended will be open in the morning and they will hopefully be calling me back in the morning with an estimate and availability. For now, Chuckie remains at Blue Pearl, where they will re-sedate and re-cath him. I feel so bad for him.

June 28th is the one-year anniversary of losing my job, and also my birthday. I need money, badly. If you ever thought about getting me a birthday gift, now's the time. I need my cat to be alive, he's only 3 years old, and he's absolutely wonderful, incredibly affectionate and friendly, gentle, and a major joy in my life.

For the people who have already sent me money, thank you so much, I truly appreciate it. I've already spent $4400 at Blue Pearl, and will need to give them another $2000-$2500 before he can be moved. Then I'll need to pay whatever the surgery costs, which will likely be $2000-$3000.

If you've known me over the years, I've never really been one to ask for money, but here we are. The system comes for us all eventually, and my common refrain of "we're all just one medical or other big emergency away from disaster" is now true in my life. This is a financial disaster, coming at the tail end of years' worth of financial disasters for me. Two years ago, the floods wiped me out financially, and then I lost my job, and then the price of my company stock plummeted over 90% and wiped me out completely (and never recovered). I have blown through my ENTIRE retirement fund and lost friends because of money, and now I'm desperately asking for help.

Thank you so very, very much.