Help Kizeck get dental surgery to be happy and pain-free!

Hi! I'm Valerie, proud guardian and cat-mom of Kizeck (pronounced like "key" with a "k" at the end—it's a long story!). Kizeck recently turned sixteen and, like many older cats, is struggling with dental disease. He needs surgery to extract several teeth. And, as a grad student with an income of $40k a year, I need help paying for it!

Kizeck is my writing buddy, little spoon, kitchen-dancing partner, and best friend. Over the past few months, Kizeck and I have been working with the amazing veterinarians at the Cambridge Cat Clinic to stabilize his hyperthyroidism and get him nice and ready for surgery. Now that he's stabilized, the only thing holding us back is the cost!

Kizeck's dental disease is progressive and can only be solved with surgery. While its main impact right now is stinky breath and gums that are too sore to accommodate tooth brushing, if it progresses further, Kizeck might experience too much pain to eat his food—and it could spread to the rest of his body and cause sepsis.

If you have met Kizeck, you know he's a special cat. He plays fetch, responds to the words "I love you" with purring, enjoys exploring the hallways of my apartment building with me, gives ample head boops and demands forehead kisses, and loves to make new human friends (read: steal my friends). He has a lot of life left in him, and I want to make his last few years as enjoyable and pain-free as possible!