Help Cricket Fight Kidney Disease

Hello world. I'm not a person who has an easy time asking for help, but here I am. My 18-year-old cat, Cricket is very sick.

She stopped eating last week and was acting strange, so I took her to the vet. She had an infection in her mouth, so the vet gave her some antibiotics and some pain medicine, and ran some labs to find out the cause. Unfortunately, the labs revealed the likely cause is end-stage kidney disease. It could be that she ate something poisonous to cats, but the more likely case is that she has had kidney disease for a long time and simply showed no symptoms as cats tend to be quiet about these things. The vet recommended against hospitalization due to how bad her labs were.

I honestly didn't have the money to cover the vet bills, but I put it on my credit card and even opened a new credit account in the hopes that there would be enough improvement for further treatment.

Cricket has been there for me for over half of my life when I didn't feel good, so the least I could do was take the best care of her I could. The first few days were very bad; Cricket wasn't eating or drinking and couldn't stand up on her own. She had lost a lot of weight and wouldn't tolerate petting. I had a talk with my daughter where I told her that Cricket was probably not going to get better. I was a wreck but kept trying.

I finally got her to eat a little bit by using baby food (ham flavor, Cricket has always been a ham fiend)! Although it isn't exactly nutritionally optimal, she was eating. After she had some food, she slowly started to perk up. I could put her in front of the water bowl and she would drink, put some food in front of her and she would nibble. She regained some strength and was able to get up and down from the bed on her own and wake me up with a meow! She is eating cat food again, a little bit at a time. We are by no means out of the woods, but I have hope that this points in the direction of being able to seek more treatment.

While being able to treat this illness is the goal, I have to admit that I don't have the means to afford it. I have set a goal on this GoFundMe that would cover the initial vet bill, the lab work, the antibiotics, the fluids administered in the vet office, the pain medication, the 2 medicines to help Cricket eat, as well as the extra food and vitamins I purchased. If things go well and we are able to do more, the vet estimates the bill for hospitalization to be another $6000-$8000. If things don't go well...I don't want to think about this part, but if things don't go well, I would like for Cricket to be able to pass peacefully at home instead of of scared at the vet, and there is of course a price tag involved with that as well.

I moved recently and wiped out my savings in doing so, and I just plain do not have this kind of money. I'll find a way to make things work, but if you have anything to spare to help me and my little family out, it would make an incredible difference.

Your donation would help me be able to focus 100% on Cricket's care. Anything at all relieves a little bit of stress and worry, and will go towards helping the absolute Best Cat have the best chance at recovery.