Save Mr. Boobis

We are Delia/Orion and Sable and this is our truest companion, Mr Anubis, known among company as Mr. Boobis.

He is seven years old and has been healthy and happy all his life. However, over a fortnight he became severely affected by an unknown illness (query mycotoxin from possible Iams bad batch, lab are looking into samples now of his food).

His brother, Mr. Malkav, fell sick a week earlier and is on his way to a full recovery after a two week hospitalisation stay at North Downs Specialist Referrals in Surrey (they are the equivalent of vet consultants). What we did not anticipate (and which is now why North Downs are looking into an environmental factor such as a toxin or a resistant virus) is that his healthier brother would fall sick with the same symptoms a week after we had pooled our money into Malkav's treatment. At the time, the vets thought Malkav was suffering some an immuno issue, isolated to him, but now evidence is pointing at something in their environment (food, a virus etc.) for both cats to be so hit. (We have destroyed or replaced everything they use in case.)

Mr. Boobis was admitted at the specialist referral over two hours away from our home and his condition is critical.

He is currently having to undergo an emergency laparotomy surgery today to open his abdomen after a long and difficult 2 week hospital stay.

Orion had the foresight to ensure that our kittens were insured with the best plan available, but Anubis’ long hospital stay and ongoing treatment has already torn through his allowance for the entire year. The emergency surgery alone will be £6000 if it is uncomplicated, on top of a hospital bill that is over £13,000.

Anubis’ estimated bill is already over £7,500 over what his insurance will cover.

We are asking our friends and family to please donate to this fund so that Anubis can stay in hospital and receive the treatment he desperately needs to get better and make it home to be with us and his brother, who misses him just as much as we do (he won't stop running around the house crying, Siamese levels of noise). We are terrified of having to commit to an "economic euthanasia" due to financing because his brother has shown that if only we had the funds to get the treatment, Mr. Boobis would make a full recovery.

Orion is self-employed and has already been covering most of our financial responsibilities for the past few months, as Sable is an NHS freelancer who is currently waiting to have major spinal surgery to their neck to enable them to work again. We had all three of them get sick this month and we are now drowning.

Please, please consider donating to this fund to help us help our babies. We are so worried that Anubis will not make it home to us without this help. Thank you so much ;_;

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More Detail

Malkav first became unwell on the 4th September when he stopped eating and had an episode of vomiting. We immediately knew this was abnormal for him and took him to our local emergency vets when he did not begin to eat by himself. There, he was started on IV fluids, anti-sickness meds and appetite stimulators. We had an ultrasound of his abdomen performed which showed that his spleen and liver were inflamed and that his liver function tests were abnormal.

After 3 days, our local vets were unable to stabilise him or get him to eat. His blood pressure was on the rise and reached 280 and his liver function tests were getting worse. After discussion with the local vets, Orion made the difficult decision to have Malkav transferred to a specialist referral centre over 2 hours away where he would receive the best diagnostic care and treatment.

Malkav was admitted to the specialist centre where they immediately noticed that he was now anaemic and very weak. He had a feeding tube inserted and was placed under sedation for a more detailed ultrasound and biopsies of his liver and spleen. His spleen showed a tumour-like lesion, but the biopsies came back benign.

After extensive treatment with antibiotics, antisickness meds and tube feeding Malkav finally began to eat by himself. He had a very complex admission where he spiked fevers for no known reason and his diagnosis is still uncertain, we are awaiting lab results from the aflotoxin + specialists.

Currently, we believe that Malkav may have been affected by industry contamination of his food. The reason for this is that only a few days after Malkav behaved unwell, we were devasted to discover that Anubis had started to develop identical symptoms.

Unfortunately, Anubis’ treatment and diagnosis have been affected by some confounding factors. He developed an aspiration pneumonia whilst unwell -requiring him to be admitted to the high dependency unit – and he also developed signs of pancreatitis.

After a short period of improvement on tube feeding, Anubis began to deteriorate again and stopped taking food orally. On 22nd of September, we pushed for him to have a CT scan as no one could figure out why he was deteriorating.

Shockingly, he was found to have three days’ worth of the dry food being fed to him at the vets stuck in his stomach. We believe he has developed a condition called ileus because of his symptoms and medication, which means his stomach and bowl are not moving by themselves.

Anubis underwent an endoscopy where they placed a more long-term feeding tube through his neck, but were unfortunately unable to suction any of the food out of his stomach. He is now on a constant IV infusion of a drug called metoclopramide to try and make his bowel move.

He has now been without proper nutrition for 5 days, because his stomach is not moving and is therefore unable to digest even the tube feed very well. We are very worried that he may develop fatty liver disease due to starvation, and that he may need invasive surgery to empty his stomach if the medication does not work.

After a few days of treatment with 3 different kinds of prokinetic medication to move his gut, Anubis’ repeat ultrasounds showed he may in fact have a foreign body in his gut that has not been apparent on previous imaging. He now has a bunched up intestine with signs of free fluid and possible perforation, requiring emergency surgery that we cannot afford as I write this.

Malkav’s treatment has come to almost £12,000 so far and he will most likely require more follow ups within the year for his spleen lesion and liver monitoring.

Anubis’ treatment costs are currently estimated to be over £17,500 and climbing.

The boys’ insurance covered most of their treatment up to £12,000 each but we have now depleted our savings and struggling to find ways to pay for both of their ongoing treatment – especially Anubis’ current lifesaving treatments and procedures.

We do not know how we will be able to afford rent and living costs, let alone ongoing care for our cats who are otherwise fit and well and predicted to make full recoveries if we can provide them with the treatment they need. These sirs are our emotional supports through the worst time and we can't imagine our world without them

Please, please consider donating to this fund to help us help our babies! Thank you so much T_T <3 <3