Hello! I would like to introduce y'all to Rosie. She came to our vet clinic as a stray and quickly wormed her way into my heart. From the get-go I knew she was special, not just from how quickly I bonded with her, but also because she has a very unique medical condition. She has a patent ductus arterious (PDA), which only occurs in 0.02% of cats (that's 1 in 5,000 kittens!). A PDA is when a vessel in the heart that is supposed to close at birth does not, creating abnormal blood flow that leads to many complications. Most animals with a PDA do not live to be a year old. This condition can be completely fixed with a surgery that closes that vessel, allowing them to live a completely normal life after.

When I adopted her, she had already entered heart failure, so the intent was to give her as good a life as possible, for what little time she had left. However, she wasn't ready to give up. Over the 3 months I've had her, we've been able to manage her symptoms and she has continued to grow and act like a completely normal kitten. So, with her defying our expectations, I decided she deserves the chance to have the procedure with the hope of her being able to continue being a little ball of energy for years to come! The surgery, which we plan to perform at Tuft's Henry and Lois Foster Hospital for Small Animals, will cost $4,000-6,000. We're getting her scheduled sometime in the next 2 weeks, because we truly are racing against time. If you are able to give even a little, Rosie and I (and Alfie, my beagle who is her playmate and who is fully in love with her) would be so incredibly thankful!