The sweetest, softest, most silly cat is in trouble and needs your help. As a lot of you already know, Shiva began suffering from labored breathing on Monday Jan 24, 2022. I noticed him breathing heavily and something seemed off. I thought he was just stressed out, so I took him over to the couch to give him pets and cuddles. I could see his little sides expanding a lot and even his throat and nose were flaring with each breath. The biggest red flag for me was that he wasn't purring at all, despite still being loving and wanting the pets. Anyone who knows this cat knows how much he loves attention. You can stroke him once and walk away for 10 minutes and come back, and he will still be purring.

 

We took him straight to the 24/7 Emergency Vet. They stabilized him and put him on oxygen treatments. They tapped his lungs and found about 250 ml of fluid in his lungs. We had to transfer him to another facility in Sandy Springs that is better equipped to handle this, that is where he currently is.

 

The initial most likely diagnosis was congenital heart failure. They were able to rule that out on 01/25. They are now trying to determine if he has cancer, and if so what kind. If it is not cancer, they are saying it will be an undiagnosed ongoing issue that can only be treated, not cured. We are waiting on the CT scan and they are running tests on the fluid samples they collected from his little kitty lungs. If it is not cancer, they will have to perform surgery to install a port to allow the fluids to drain from his lungs.

 

In either case, surgery is going to be required. We have maxed out our credit cards already. We spent $1300 for the first night at Village Vets. Blue Pearl's current minimum estimate for his stay there up until the CT scan is $5492.78. Once they have a diagnosis and can proceed with surgery, we will be looking at $12492.78.

 

Without surgery, he would have to have his lungs tapped and drained daily by a vet. This would be a miserable quality of life and frankly is not even a consideration for us.

 

After surgery will also require ongoing treatments that will be very expensive.

 

We are going to save Shiva no matter what it takes. But, we need help from our friends, family, and community right now.

 

Shiva needs your help.

For transparency, we are working with a charity that may be able to cover most of, or all, of the costs. We hope, and believe, they will take the case as they have already contacted Blue Pearl about it. If this happens, we will ask if you want your donation(s) back. We will still need help even if they cover all the costs, because there will be a lot of necessary ongoing treatment/visits/care that they will not cover.

For 100% transparency, even with the surgery, and if he survives, his long term prospects are not good. We understand this risk. We love this fluffy goofball so much. He is always the life of any get together we have and know many of you love him a lot too. We see proceeding with recommended treatments as the only option.