It is with the heaviest heart of hearts that I find myself writing this GoFundMe campaign. My best friend in the whole world, Precious, is dying in a way that doesn’t make sense to me. It started with a small’ish growth in her left ear. My vet said that it was fine since it wasn’t getting any bigger and to just let it be, so I let it be and didn’t have it removed. It was fine and didn’t get bigger for most of a year, but now all of a sudden it has become huge and has grown out to the side of her head and down the side of her jaw to a little bit underneath her chin on the left side. My vet says it’s not one big growth, but several that have grown together to form one large mass. We didn’t get any of the growths biopsied at the time, but my vet instead did what she used the very technical term to describe as “poked it.” I didn’t see what she did because she takes Precious in the back and does these things, but she told me she just poked it with a syringe to see whether blood or clear fluid would come out and then she said she tested what came out. The results were that what came out was a mixture of blood and clear fluid and the tests she ran on the fluid came back as inconclusive/inflammatory, which my vet interpreted as a good result in combination with the growth not having gotten bigger at the time.

I have preventative bloodwork done on Precious at her annual checkup every year and we just had her preventative bloodwork done earlier this year and I told my vet that if she thought Precious had cancer or any tests showed that she had cancer, I didn’t want to know and we could still treat her without me knowing that diagnosis. I didn’t want to know because it would just make me go crazy with worry for her. Everything came back fine and she is very healthy other than these growths (well, as far as I know because I told the vet not to tell me if she had cancer).

The lumps not only started to get bigger and grow outside of her ear, but they also started to grow internally and at our last visit to the vet, the vet felt that the growths were pressing on my Precious’ voicebox. I told the vet I was worried that these lumps would continue to grow inward and eventually suffocate her and my vet said that she was worried about that too, which then really made me worried for my Precious.

We were at the vet only one short month ago and since that time Precious has choked once (February 28th) and now hard swallows. She is restless and can’t stay in one spot for too long and I think she’s restless because she is trying to get comfortable because she can’t breath as well as she’d like. When she purrs, I can hear her having difficulty breathing which makes things very hard because I don’t want her to purr if it makes it hard for her to breath, but something as simple as petting her and showing her how much I love her makes her purr. How do I not show love to my Precious so she won’t purr and then she can breath, but at the same time these may be her last days and the last chances I have to show her my love?

At my last appointment, my vet gave me the option to be referred to a specialist to have the growths removed and they weren’t a concern enough at the time so I chose to hold off for the time being. But I contacted my vet as soon as Precious choked a week or so ago and asked her to start the referral. The receptionist at my vet’s contacted me and said that I was being referred to an oncologist and so I guess the cat’s out of the bag (no pun intended) about what’s going on with my Precious baby girl and one of the tests my vet did must have came back positive for cancer. I was offered the choice of two clinics to be referred to and one has a specialist vet who does endoscopic surgeries, where instead of cutting right into Precious’ throat, she will go down the throat with a surgical tool and attempt to remove the growths that way and I like this option better than cutting her open because this method of surgery is less invasive and it will be a lot easier on Precious during recovery (shorter recovery time, less pain, etc.).

I’ve never had to reach out to my community to ask for help with anything, but I humble myself for my best friend to save her life. It’s so senseless to me for a perfectly healthy cat to suffocate and die when the growth that’s going to suffocate her can just be removed. I also don’t understand why the higher powers (I would say God here, but I don’t want to offend anyone) would do this to such a beautiful soul. I can’t recall the scientific name of the gene off the top of my head, but Precious is pure white (not even any black or non-white colour hidden in a crease of fur or on the bottom of her little pink toe beans!) and she also has beautiful pure blue eyes that look like marbles because there’s so much depth of colours of blue in them, and since she is pure white with blue eyes, she has the gene that causes deafness, so she was already dealt a bad hand by being 100% deaf and I don’t understand why that wasn’t enough and now she also has to have these growths in and around her ear that are going to suffocate her if not removed. It’s senseless and a very cruel twist of fate and I hate that my best friend is this sick and I might lose her. I don’t know what I will do if this happens because I will be crushed and a big part of me would die with her. I’m home based and especially since COVID, Precious is with me for most of my day. I live by myself and it’s just her and I and almost everything I can think of that I do in a day has her in my mind’s eye along with me. If I’m on the computer, she’s on my lap. If I’m taking a nap, she’s cuddled into my side. If I’m eating, she’s sitting very politely beside me with her best, “Aren’t you going to share?” face.

I love her so much and she’s been such a big part of my life for a long time that she’s not just my pet and best friend, but she’s a member of my family, so I’m reaching out to my community and if anyone can help out by donating, I would be eternally grateful. I’m asking for financial help to cover the costs of travel to and from the specialist vet who is in another city, the cost of the surgery and tests leading up to the surgery, the cost of hotel stays during the surgery so that I can be close and get to the vet immediately if anything happens and I only have so much time to get there before she’s going to be gone. I am also asking for financial help to cover the costs of medications and any aftercare. She’s currently on three medications (prednisone, a human Reactine allergy tablet daily and a blood pressure med to counteract the prednisone). If you can’t donate money, then I would very happily accept donations of prayers too as they are very powerful and just as valuable as money. Please find it in your heart to help me save my best friend and thank you for any goodwill you send our way.

P.S. I didn’t share a photo of the lump in Precious’ ear. It’s not itchy, but it bothers her and she scratches at it so it’s a bloody lump and a photo would be very graphic and possibly disturbing to some people. I keep her claws trimmed as short as I can to reduce how much damage she does when she scratches at the growth, but she still seems to make it bleed whether her claws are trimmed or not. If anyone would like a photo of the growth as verification of my Precious being sick, I will post one, but keep in mind it won’t be pretty to look at.