Help give Gen a chance at a long, healthy life!

TL;DR - beloved cat, severe periodontal disease, expensive surgery, broke artist/university employee who loves him. Please help. Details below.

My cat, Eugenides (Gen) and I have been together for a little over ten years. He’s my family; he’s seen me through the worst experiences of my life, including unemployment, the quarantine period in 2020-21 when I didn’t see my human family face-to-face for over a year, and endless other periods of stress, crisis, loneliness, and heartbreak. I adopted him after a friend of a friend found him as a young, friendly stray, who was inviting himself into people’s homes through their cat doors to charm them into feeding him. He gets his name from a character in one of my favorite series (Megan Whalen Turner’s “Queen’s Thief” books) because of his charm, his penchant for heights, and his dramatics. He headbutts and purrs his way into the hearts of nearly everyone he meets.

This isn’t Gen’s first time facing difficult medical circumstances. In August 2021, he was hospitalized for three days upon a diagnosis of life-threatening ketoacidosis from (previously unsuspected) diabetes. He made it through that ordeal and, after a few months of twice-daily insulin injections, his diabetes thankfully went into full remission (cats can get lucky that way, unlike humans), though I’ve kept a careful eye out for returning symptoms.

He went in for what we thought would be a routine tooth extraction this August (why is it always August?), and it … did not go as planned.

The initial diagnosis I was given was for a common, aggressive form of oral cancer; from the extent of the inflammation and growths in his x-rays, I was told it would not be treatable. For a week, out of nowhere, I thought he wouldn’t live out the year.

It was a relief when the biopsy results came back negative for cancer, but only partially. He has serious and urgent periodontal disease which has caused chronic inflammation that is, to quote the report, “beginning to destroy the bone and tissues supporting some of his teeth.” On one side of his mouth is a lesion caused by a locally aggressive form of bone infection (osteomyelitis). As his body tries to fight the infection, he’s also experiencing bone remodeling, which if unchecked could cause additional pain and distortion.

He needs help, quickly, and he needs a specialist who can go in and fully assess the extent of the problems and perform the different forms of care he needs (extraction, debriding to remove the remnants of infection, additional biopsies/cultures to make sure that there isn’t another issue obscured by the osteomyelitis). It’s complex and expensive, and I am, to be frank, broke. We live in one of the most expensive urban areas in the country and I’m just barely keeping my chin above water. I can’t afford this - but I won’t let him suffer.

We’ve made an appointment with a veterinary dental specialist for November 14th, so I have that time to come up with the funds to pay for his care. I’ve already paid over $2K, which I really could not afford, between the initial intervention at my regular vet ($1,268.53), antibiotics ($83.95), the fee for the assessment with the specialist ($225), and the required deposit for the surgical visit ($500). I’m setting the goal of this fundraiser for the upper end of the estimate I was given for that visit (a photo of the itemized estimate is included on this page), and the costs I've just listed, with a little added for GFM fees (2.9%+$0.30 per donation).

There’s a VERY good chance that this will be one-and-done, with an easy recovery afterwards. He’s only 11 years old, and he’s an active, friendly, delightful kitty who deserves more time--and a life free of pain. And he’s my rock. I would never have gotten through the last ten years without him.

Asking for help like this is terrifying and deeply uncomfortable; I’ve never done anything like it before. But I’ll do it for Gen, because I can’t give him the care he deserves without it.

Thank you so much, from the bottom of my heart, for anything you can give.