Update: Thank you so much to all of you who have helped by sharing or donating! We are so grateful to have such caring people in our lives. We have some updates about the cats we would love to share. With your support, Rowan was able to see the neurologist for a consultation. After a round of steroids, the use of his legs returned and we now have a plan of action for any possible relapses.

Unfortunately, Juniper got much worse over the past few months. Despite frequent vet visits and a variety of tests, they still do not have concrete answers about what is going on. With your help in January she was able to get an abdominal ultrasound which showed an enlarged spleen and enlarged lymph nodes. Thankfully her kidneys and bladder look healthy and there are no masses. Our vet has been an excellent troubleshooter and worked to keep our costs down as much as possible, and has referred us to an internal medicine specialist at the VCA to help Juniper get a diagnosis. On Monday, we had to hospitalize Juniper for the day at her vet. They checked her bloodwork and urinalysis, did another ultrasound, took X-Rays, and gave her some meds and fluids. The steroids and fluids did help, which will help the specialist narrow down a diagnostic and treatment plan. Because of her unexpected and expensive hospitalization we really need help with her upcoming internal medicine costs.

If you are able to help, either by donating (direct donation is also great and will get counted in the total) or sharing this post again, we really appreciate anything you can do. Juniper is such a sweet and resilient girl and we know she can recover when we get more answers. Thank you, from all of us! (Taylor, Anna, Hypatia, Rowan, and most of all, Juniper)

--------------------

Original Text: Anna and I really need help from our family, friends, and community. Over the past few weeks we’ve had multiple kitten emergencies. These have been emotionally and financially stressful. We have exceeded the amount we can comfortably contribute to Juniper and Rowan’s care especially given some recent human/family health issues. (Taylor has been going through a very long diagnostic process and battling for the correct insurance coverage.)

Our kittens are a very important part of our family, so we wanted to share some more about them.

Juniper came into our lives about a month after Leviathan, Taylor’s emotional support animal, suddenly passed away. She immediately found her way into our hearts. She’s been fulfilling a very big role as Taylor’s new emotional support animal while she has been navigating medical uncertainty. Juniper has been so helpful to us and Hypatia (our resident 4 year old cat who is very healthy - someone knock on wood!) as we all heal from the unexpected loss of Leviathan.

Shortly after adopting Juniper, we learned about Toby Toebeans. He was a community cat here in Tucson who lost use of his back legs in July prior to us adopting him. Thanks to the amazing efforts of folks like @catsintucson and others in the Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) community, Toby got the care he needed from Pima Animal Care Center (PACC) and made a miracle recovery. He’s now living his best life inside with us, Juniper, and Hypatia. We renamed him Rowan to match Juniper’s arboreal name, but Toby Toebeans, his shelter name, has stuck with him! Toby is a very special kitten! Before adopting him, we did our research, talked to our vet, spoke with his foster parents, and everyone agreed that this seemed like a weird, one time occurrence. There was no explanation for what happened, but everyone was confident it was a one off thing given his full recovery and lack of other health issues. While we’ve had him Toby has been a wonderful little guy. He’s incredibly athletic and fast - you would never guess he ever had mobility issues before!

Sadly, on 12/8 Toby’s back legs stopped working with no warning or explanation. He rapidly declined overnight so we got him into our amazing vet on 12/9 for an emergency visit. We started him on steroids and got him some much needed x-ray imaging and pain medication. Vet bills started to add up, but not helping him was not an option. We switched his diagnostic care to a lower cost vet who squeezed us in this past Friday for some additional necessary testing.

While all of this has been happening, our sweet Juniper has also been quite sick. We started noticing a pink tint in the litter box several weeks ago and her symptoms worsened from there: she became lethargic and her abdomen became noticeably swollen. When we brought her to the vet for some testing, they had to filter her urine three times to get a reading due to the amount of blood. It seemed like she had a UTI and one week of antibiotics seemed to help, but now it seems that something more complex is going on. Her symptoms all returned and worsened, and she needs more medication and an abdominal ultrasound, plus more re-checks of blood and urine when this next round of medicine wraps up. We don’t have answers yet, but imaging will help us figure out what’s going on and how to treat her. Our vet is confident that she will get better when we get more answers.

Both our kittens had a clean bill of health when we adopted them and we felt financially confident about our ability to care for them. We have had to go to the vet over 5 times in the past 2 weeks with our kittens and have paid about $3,500 for veterinary care in the past 4 weeks. Our vets are still working on diagnostics and coming up with treatment plans for Juniper and Rowan. Our goal is to recover some of these costs and raise money for the upcoming diagnostics needed for Rowan and Juniper. For Juniper this currently includes an abdominal ultrasound and consultation ($794-914) and multiple rechecks of bloodwork and urinalysis (a couple hundred for each recheck). Rowan’s needs are a bit more unsure at this time but he has been responding well to his steroids. We need to get him in for a neurology consult ($175), some additional blood work (a few hundred at least), and possible advanced imaging (an MRI may not be within our means even with help so we are prioritizing other avenues of diagnostics and working with our vet on lower cost options).

Last week in addition to providing extra round the clock care for Rowan, Taylor applied for over 10 forms of financial pet assistance through small nonprofit fundraising and advocacy groups. Unfortunately, these groups rarely cover diagnostic costs and are unable to contribute more than a few hundred dollars once a treatment plan is made. If we are approved for some of these funds--we’ve sadly been rejected from a few already--it will help, but they will only make a small dent. Taylor and Anna have been brainstorming other ways to recover financially, but the most impactful help is financial contributions from family, friends, and other community members. Anything you can contribute--seriously even $20 makes a dent!--will help. We understand that you might not be able to contribute financially at this time! If you can't, we would love for you to still share this fundraiser.

We can usually afford regular vet care, and the occasional urgent care pet visit, but we are now experiencing financial distress due to this all happening at once so quickly. We are confident that with some help we will be able to get back on track.

We are heartbroken to think that something might happen to either of our sweet kitties, both of whom have become such an important part of our family so quickly. They both love to snuggle with us and have helped Hypatia recover from the loss of her best friend. We want to do everything we can for our family.

Thank you for your consideration!