Lady Grantham's Hospitalization

Amy and I decided, before we even got cats, that one of them would HAVE to be named after Dame Maggie Smith's character from Downton Abbey: Lady Grantham.  An elegant upper class woman  who is devastatingly sarcastic and quarrelsome but somehow lovable despite her personality? That was a cat to be sure, and exactly the cat we wanted.

And then we saw this monster:


A beautiful and elegant white cat that kept jumping and pouncing on anything that moved. And all the more lovable because of it. It was a perfect match! The only problem is that this cat was a boy. But you know? It's the 21st century and cats don't know their gender, so it was settled: our new boy kitten was Lady Grantham. (Which fits well with the other cat we adopted, a black female cat that we named Batman.)



His Ladyship has lived with us for almost five years now and he is the sweetest cat. And I know, I know, EVERYONE says their cat is the sweetest cat, but he has to be up there in the national rankings. He loves to play and cuddle but he's also just absolutely terrible at cat things. He was abandoned at birth and wasn't ever really raised by his mother, so no one taught him cats things like scratch all the furniture, pee on things when you're angry, and jump onto the kitchen counter.  He missed all the bad behavior and figured out all the good behavior. Absolutely nails it on litterbox use and has never once intentionally scratched or bitten us, even when we bathed him.



All jokes and cleverness aside, I really love this cat. He's well behaved and fun to have around. He's a living, breathing animal that responds to us and interacts with us. He's our pet, he's part of our family, and that should really explain how we feel.


So Monday night he was being pretty sluggish and lazy. We have a warming cat bed that he likes to lay in, and he spent most of the night in it. Our roommate, Michael, went to bed a little early and Lady Grantham didn't budge. That should have been a warming sign because usually he is glued to Michael's side. 

The next morning, when I fed the cats, I noticed that Lady Grantham didn't eat. That was not a good sign. He is a PIG. He usually eats some of his food, goes to Batman's bowl and pushes her out of the way and eats her food, then goes back to his bowl and finishes his food. Amy was off work that day and said he threw up whatever he had eaten, which is very unusual for him, so not  a good sign.

She kept eyes on him, and then noticed he was breathing funny, very fast and very deep and his sides were puffing in and out in a very visible way. She also noted that he was very lethargic and static, not his normal, inquisitive self. We were lucky that Amy was off work, so she took LG to the vet immediately. They admitted him and ran tests and couldn't find anything wrong with him, but agreed that the breathing issues were a real problem.

So they sent them to the emergency veterinary hospital. They ran more tests and put him on oxygen to help with the breathing but they also couldn't find anything wrong with him. X-rays came back showing nothing weird, blood tests were fine, urine tests, etc. They said they'd like to keep him overnight for observation and we agreed.


He wasn't eating or drinking, so they set up an IV to get him fluids and kept him in the oxygen box. The poor guy seemed pretty despondent, but he's a big scaredy cat and we just assumed that he was scared from being at the vet and freaked out by the breathing thing. We didn't really know yet how serious this was.

I'll do daily updates to this to give more information on what happened each day, but where we stand right now is this: Lady Grantham has been in the emergency veterinary hospital for four days now. He has been on oxygen the entire time, as well as antibiotics and fluids. They still aren't sure what's wrong with him, but he's starting to accumulate fluid in his lungs and has been getting slowly worse.

The hospital is INCREDIBLY expensive, especially because of the oxygen and the multiple x-rays of his lungs to keep eyes on the fluid buildup. Obviously the antibiotics are costly and there's talk of a fluid wash in his lungs to diagnose whatever is in there which would be the most expensive thing yet. 

Amy and I are both assistants in Hollywood and make basically minimum wage in Los Angeles, one of the most expensive cities on the planet. Our meager savings have been eaten up and we've maxed out a CareCredit account. This really caught us by surprise, especially how the costs just snowballed.

I'm not being dramatic when I say we are already going to be paying this off for years, and we are by no means through the woods yet. This week has been so scary and so stressful, but no matter the cost, more then anything we just want our cat to be ok. And so, after some encouragement from family and friends, we're taking our hats in our hands and asking for help.

We're asking for money. We need help paying off what we've already spent in the past four days and what we will likely be putting on credit cards in the next several. Please help us if you can. Even if it's a only a couple bucks, I can promise you that it will mean the world to Amy and I. And if you can't help financially, sharing this GoFundMe page will be just as valuable.

We hate asking you all for help, but we don't know what else to do. We know that we're incredibly lucky to have the fantastic family and friends that we do, people that we can lean on. We're incredibly grateful for you all and anything at all you can do to help and I promise you that we won't ever forget it.

- Matt and Amy