In August 2023, I went to our local no-kill shelter to find a friend for our cat Stella. I’d been thinking about maybe an orange boy because of how silly they are, but when I entered the kitten room, there was this little black soot sprite looking thing with fur like someone had rubbed a balloon all over him.

When the volunteer opened his kennel, this kitten immediately clambered onto my shoulders and started purring and rubbing his face against me, and I was in love. I was asked if I wanted to look at other kittens as this creature was being placed back in his kennel, but he very quickly returned to his perch on my shoulders. I told the volunteer that it was obvious this little dude wanted to come home with me, and so yet another void cat was added to the family. He’s officially named Prince Pickle Rick the Slorg because we couldn’t decide on a name, and when my wife jokingly suggested Pickle Rick, I decided Pickle was a really cute name for a cat.

When we adopted him, he had a history of GI issues, which is pretty common for stray kittens. He’d already gone through all the necessary deworming, so we decided we would keep an eye on it. It got a little better after we visited our vet for his initial visit and got some probiotics to add to his food. Pickle was in the clear!

But as he grew and got settled into our home with his new sisters, we started noticing some worrying things. During the day, I’d sometimes see him panting when he was entirely at rest and hadn’t even been playing or running around. He never had any other signs of distress, and his appetite, water intake, and energy were normal. Eventually, my wife asked me if I thought Pickle breathed too quickly, as his respiration was increased even while he was sleeping on her. I admitted he seemed to breathe faster than our other cats and said I’d try to get a measurement in the morning. The next morning, I timed his breathing while he was sleeping on my desk (his favorite spot). He was deep, deep asleep, but I measured around 60 breaths per minute. The normal resting respiratory rate for a cat is between 16-40 breaths per minute. I immediately made an appointment with our vet for first thing the following morning.

I’d made the appointment for 8am, figuring that left me plenty of time to clock in to my job at 10am. Little did I know, Pickle and I were about to embark on a full day of testing and stress and crying. The vet was incredibly concerned about his increased respiratory rate, so the first things to check were his lungs and heart. After waiting on some results, his lungs and heart were thankfully fine, but his respiration had gotten worse due to the stress so he was sedated and placed in an oxygen chamber because they were worried about it getting any faster. They ran some blood work while I was there that was inconclusive, and I was eventually referred to the local emergency and diagnostics center to consult with an internal medicine specialist. And so the first vet bill of the day was incurred by our local vet (who is genuinely lovely and they work so hard to apply any discounts and keep costs down) of a hefty $1405.15.

Off we went to the giant medical center, with me teary eyed and Pickle blissfully sedated and silly. I finally got to hold him for the first time in hours when I dropped him off with the specialist. She explained that they’d be running some more specific tests and that I would likely be able to get Pickle at the end of the day. After a few hours, I was thankfully able to pick him up at the very end of the day and speak with the doctor who had reviewed all of his testing.

The long and short of it is: He’s “a head scratcher.” Multiple things about him are just a little off. His liver is a little enlarged, which none of his test results explain, and there’s some thickening in parts of the walls of his digestive tract. Several of his blood and UA panel readings are just a little outside the norm. The doctor told us she’d reviewed Pickle’s results with some of her other colleagues in the building, and the general consensus was “something is clearly a little wrong but there’s absolutely nothing specific here.” And none of it explained his respiratory rate. He had almost no B12 in his system, so I now give him monthly B12 injections, and the vet sent us home with another round of deworming medication just in case. But again… none of this explains the respiration, and it hasn’t improved.

Anyway, the second (and final) bill for the day was received. A cool $1508.68.

My wife and I have always lived paycheck-to-paycheck, and our household income has basically been halved in the last year due to my wife’s job. She still gets some irregular work and has some income from her store, but even combined with my sad little paychecks from my underpaid full time job, it hasn’t been enough. The only “savings” we ever had was a little box of cash we’d set aside from past anime convention artist alley sales, but that has long since dried up to help pay the bills. The only reason we were able to pay Pickle’s bills that day was because - by some actual miracle - my immigrant wife’s very first credit card finally came in. I don’t want to think about how different that day would’ve been if it hadn’t

We’ve really been struggling to make ends meet lately, only able to pay rent last month because my parents managed to scrape some money together to help us out. We don’t really buy groceries often, and we’ve had to cancel plans with friends and upcoming anniversary plans because we simply do not have money.

And, months later, my wife’s CC finally has payments due. Right now, they’re payments of $400/mo which just… isn’t possible for us. It might be the thing that finally ruins us. We don’t know what to do anymore, and we’re backed into a corner.

I’ve made this GFM to hopefully recoup some of the costs of Pickle’s vet bills from that day in order to reduce the payments for my wife’s CC and mitigate the financial hit we’re going to take for it.

We love our silly little man so, so much, and we don’t regret it at all. One day I’d love to get him a follow-up for some further investigation, but that’s far in the future. Right now, mommies need to focus on keeping a roof over our cats’ heads and feeding them (and maybe ourselves).

Any help would go such a long way. Even just sharing this with your family or friends. If there happen to be any extra funds, those will be going towards rent and groceries.

Thank you so, so much for reading to the end. Please enjoy this doodle one of our friends did of our stinky boy: