Mister Chibbs' Surgery Fundraiser

Hello friends and animal lovers,

First of all, I have never done anything like this. Ask for money. I don't know if it's my Gen Z soul refusing to ask for help, but here I am.

Our beloved seven year old Ragdoll kitty, Chibbs Viggo Babadook Alexander (we name all of our pets after characters in shows we're binging at the time) started having breathing problems about a month ago. He would never tell us he was having issues, you just have to stare at him all day long (which we do) to notice there was a slight difference. After shooting a video of his breathing and emailing our wonderful vet, San Marin Animal Hospital, thinking I'd get a free analysis, they demanded we bring him in. After Xrays, they found that his chest was filled with chylous effusion (fluid), which is a rare genetic condition.

The options they gave us were fairly severe, including putting him down that day. We all decided it was best to perform a thoracocentesis (chest tap) on him to buy us some time and think about the road ahead. They removed 300 ml from his wee body that day. Eventually, we were able to secure an appt. with a heart veterinarian specialist at UC Davis. The fluid comes back in his chest every four days, so in between appointments, he is getting chest taps. Mind you, he turns into a kitten again after each tap. I know this sounds insane, but he seems to know that the carrier means that he will eventually feel better, so he sleeps on or near it. Like a dog. He is basically a dog, but better because he's a cat. No offense, I love dogs too.

Anyway, the heart specialist's analysis was that it was not the heart, not cancer, nothing they could see or immediately figure out. They recommended that he see an internal medicine specialist. The next appt available was in 2 weeks, so we just kept tapping his chest at a local vet meanwhile. That appt was on Monday, August 15th at UC Davis.

Here is their recommendation:

"At this time, we recommend that Chibbs be considered for surgical intervention including thoracic duct ligation, cisterna chyli ablation and possible pericardiectomy."

This basically means that his chest keeps filling up with fat fluid that is not turning into fat, so they will stop where it comes from. The source. They also let me know that the chance of him surviving the surgery is 50/50. So there's that.

For those of you who like my high-class IG cooking shows, you know that Chibbs is my sous chef and my taster. He is my 4:30am alarm clock. He is a huge part of our family. Our text name for my family is "Chibbs' Bitches."

I could go on and on, you all know what he means to us. Just as much as your pet means to you. This is very hard. We know that it may not work, but it actually might work. We were quoted an estimate of $15k for the surgery and we've already spent a bit over $5k for the thoracocentesis ("tap" sounds just so gross, like it’s draft beer).

I want to thank everyone who convinced me to do this fundraising as a last resort, especially WIRED's CatChat Slack channel, who have been there for Chibbs and I from the beginning of this heartbreaking medical adventure.

P.S.: The shows we were binging at the time we named Chibbs were: Sons of Anarchy, Ghostbusters II and the Babadook.