Help Raneen get the care she needs

Hi everyone,

This is Raneen, my 10 month old kitten who we adopted from an abusive situation in May of this year. When we adopted her she was incredibly underweight and had suffered from malnutrition.

Since the very first day Raneen was presenting with symptoms of Cat Flu which we immediately took her to the vets who although couldn't be 100% sure treated her for the Cat Flu anyway. Some weeks had passed and Raneens breathing was becoming gradually worse, she started open mouth panting at rest and when playing. She then developed a wheeze and a slight snore, so we were back at the vets, who took an X ray and had found that Raneen had fluids in her lungs, they treated her for both a possible upper respitorary infection and possible heart/lung worm. This had no effect on Raneens conditions.

Raneens condition deteriorated pretty rapidly, she was now making snorting sounds whilst resting or exerting any form of energy, she had also become extremely lethargic and slept pretty much all day, so the vets decided to treat her for feline asthma and prescribed 5mg of Prednisolone, which once again had no effect on Raneens symptoms, if anything the steroids caused Raneen to gain an unhealthy amount of weight in a short period of time.

A week ago today, Raneens breathing had become visibly laboured, she was in respiratory distress and she would not stop wheezing and snorting, her gums were pale and she kept flopping herself around the house. I rushed her to the vet who thought the best course of action would be to put her under general anaesthetic and run some diagnostic tests on her. Upon reviewing her scans they unfortunately discovered that Raneens heart is enlarged which was pushing against her trachea which is contributing to her difficulty to breath, and because of the suspected dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) it explains why her lungs are pooling with fluids. Unfortunately the vet explained that the Prednisolone (steroids) that was prescribed for the suspected feline asthma exasperated the possible heart disease and has effected her heart in ways they did not expect.

The vet had advised me that her condition is beyond their scope of care and Raneen will have to be seen by both an Internal Medicine specialist and a Cardiologist, for an echocardiogram which is an ultrasound of the heart, Bronchoalveolar lavage procedure to extract cultures from her lungs to pin point the exact reason her lungs are filling up with fluids and failing to regulate them selves, as well as an endoscopy to examine the trachea and oesophagus for abnormalities and many other routine procedures to finally find a diagnosis for Raneen.

Raneen is deteriorating rapidly, within this week alone, she has stopped eating, her breathing is extremely laboured, she sleeps all day, no longer plays (exercise intolerance) and is wheezing and snorting more frequently which indicated her lungs are in distress.

We have no choice but to see a specialist for an emergency referral who has advised that because of the nature of Raneens condition they will have to run their own examinations from scratch to find a diagnosis, the longer we wait the iller she becomes and all i want to do is give her a fighting chance. Raneen is my baby, i love her so much, she saved me as much as i saved her.

Raneen is not eligible for pet insurance as her conditions are deemed as "pre existing" which means all expenses will have to be paid upfront.

Thank you so much for reading this far!