Help Little Kitty Breathe Again: Support Needed

Hello

My name is Noah, and me and my partner Hunter Holmes are raising money for our cat, Little Kitty, and her emergency vet bills.

Beginning Wednesday May 7th, Little Kitty was experiencing sniffles and a fever. We took her to the vet and were then discharged with antibiotics and a basic care plan to get her back to health. Over the course of the next couple of days, Little Kitty began to make improvements and our worries began to lessen. But Saturday, May 10th we woke up to a nightmare as Little Kitty was having severe difficulty breathing.

Little Kitty was rushed to the emergency vet immediately, where she was taken in and put on oxygen before getting X-Rays done. Over the course of the day, however, Little Kitty’s condition worsened immensely. It was to the point where just opening the chamber for a couple of seconds caused her to start gasping for air. Thus, she had to be intubated and put under anesthesia to get her X-Rays.

After an agonizing 6 hour wait, we discovered that Little Kitty had an extremely narrow trachea (windpipe) and thus made breathing extremely difficult for her. The vet informed us this was very rare, and she had never seen this in a cat in her 20 years of experience.

We were told extubation and weening off the anesthesia would be extremely risky, and she could die at essentially any moment in the 6 hours after extubation. We were devastated, wondering if we will ever be able to see our baby again.

Today, May 13th, Little Kitty has made a great initial recovery. She had been transferred to the Veterinary Hospital at UF to find out the cause of her narrow trachea- if she was born with it, or if something caused it to be that way. She is awake, alert and even eating a little bit. She is breathing on her own now as well.

While we have yet to find out exactly why this happened, the current theory is she may have been born this way and her upper respiratory infection just made it that much worse. Asthma is another possibility. Cancer at this time does not seem likely. She also may have experienced tracheal collapse, we just don’t know yet. She will have a scope put down her Trachea to see what it looks like, and she may need a stent put in to help prop it open.

The vet bills for this past weekend are astronomical, as she needed overnight hospitalization from Saturday May 10th to today, Tuesday May 13th. And these bills are expected to go up as she is still hospitalized.

I work 2 jobs and make less than $45k a year. My partner Hunter had lost his job several weeks ago, and has struggled to find one quickly. It has been extremely stressful with lots of tears and heartache for both of us. We are immensely thankful for the teams at Veterinary Emergency Clinic of Central Florida and the UF Small Animal Hospital for their tireless work in saving our Little Kitty, and now we just need to manage paying for it all.

We are asking for any donation you can spare, big or small, anything is greatly appreciated.

Little Kitty is only 4 and has had great health otherwise. She means the world to us.

Being handed a bill in the thousands and then having to make the on the spot decision to pay and save your pets life or to let them die on the table is an experience I hope nobody has to bear themselves.

Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts

Noah Green, and Hunter Holmes.