Howdy! I’m Jules, but the individual I really want to introduce you to is Phantom, a goofy and sweet community cat who lives in my neighborhood. I saw Phantom for the first time when he was a kitten hiding in our bushes with his brother Ghost (see a theme with our naming scheme?). He was so skittish back then, but now that he’s over a year old and has met so many folks in the area, he’s become a friendly goofball who loves butt scratches and rolling around in the grass.

With the help of some amazing friends, we were able to TNVR (trap, neuter, vaccinate, and release) him and his two siblings and another member of the colony over the course of several months. Recently, however, we spotted him with a very bad limp and after several failed attempts, finally managed to scoop him up to get looked at.

Unfortunately for poor Phantom, his femur is very badly broken. We don’t know what happened—maybe he was hit by a car, or got his leg caught in something, or fell from a height—but he’s in a lot of pain and needs surgery to fix his leg. We’ve tried seeking help for him from multiple organizations and vets, and our best option is to work with a local vet who helped us with the TNVR process. We want to get him healed up so we can hopefully get him adopted into a forever home so this doesn’t happen again.

We need to raise $2,200 for that surgery so that he can regain use of that leg and go back to being the silly boy we’ve spotted chasing bugs and pouncing around with his siblings. Without the surgery, his leg will not heal right and will continue to cause him tremendous pain. With the surgery, he is expected to make a thorough recovery.