Save Topher's life, funding vet costs.

Hi, I'm Sophie, me and my family live in Worcester (UK). The cat distribution system bestowed Topher on us around 12 years ago when he was just a kitten. His housemate Kissa joined us around a year later.

Baby Topher, at 4 weeks old

In Brief:

This fund is to help with the shortfall we've encountered in diagnosing the puzzling symptoms, and treatment to save his life

A few days ago, Topher suddenly became seriously ill and dispondant. Nearly 3 days on, we are all stumped on that the cause is, and meanwhile he's deteriorating. He's lost his magnificent Maine Coon majesty like he's aged 5 years, and is clearly depressed and dispondant.

Very ill. Poor Topher looking no where near his glorious self a few days ago.

It hurts seeing our once proud boy so sad and scared, and not being able to immediately get him feeling better, let alone fix the problem.

The Story So Far:

When he started crashing, I rushed him straight to the vets who were excellent and acted quickly to provide emergency treatment. They took bloods to figure out what the cause was, suspecting the onset of Hyperthyroidism.

When the bloods came back yesterday, the vets were astonished that the Thyroxine test (T4 to check Thyroid dysfunction) came back completely normal. And on top of that, the complete bloods all checked out; no sign of infection, diabetes, all organs functioning correctly... The only abnormality was in the red blood cell count, which showed he has moderate anaemia.

He'd been prescribed a strong painkiller for me to bring him home with, and I'd made him as comfortable as I could overnight, but he wasn't eating or drinking, and showed extreme discomfort, despite the meds. He was close to collapse when I took him back in yesterday to be hospitalised and given fluid therapy in the hope that we could stabilise him.

With no other indicators as to where the cause of his illness is, the next step is ultrasounds of his heart to check for HCM (hypertrophic cardiomyopathy) and abdomen (for... who knows what else).

Grooming Service. Topher's little mate Kissa, who's currently missing her brother (from another mother) and wandering around yowling for him.

Why We Need Help Now:

Up to this point we have funded the vet costs, including the scans, from our savings, put aside for emergencies such as this.

Topher was insured from the day we got him, and for most of his life, however when we hit financial pressure during and after the COVID pandemic we needed to cut costs. We had become parents and our little boy was just 2 years old when the first lockdown hit. Costs were spiraling, as I had the misfortune to have had become self employed around 6 months before. That meant I was one of the few unlucky ones that couldn't get any assistance: no furlough pay, and no work.

Since then, we managed to recover, our son started schooI and childcare costs reduced as a result, and I left self-employment in favour of the safety full time employment provides. Despite the cost of living increases, we managed to put away some rainy day funds.

However... January saw me get ill with the pervasive virus that hit a lot of counties, putting me in bed (and nearly in hospital) for over a week, then our son was hospitalised with the same virus a week after. I suffered a huge reduction in my paycheck due to the time off. And to top it off, bringing us up to date, I was made redundant 2 weeks ago

Cat Meet Baby. Our boy when he was a newborn, and recieving Topher's approval.

So far including all of these scans, we've been able to finance the four figure vet bill, but after that we'll have exhausted our funds. And I'm unfortunately still looking for a new job.

We don't know what the scans will show, or if they will even provide a diagnosis. If it doesn't, and we need to do more investigations with no real clue as to when we'll finally discover the cause, we'll have no choice but to make a very upsetting decision.

If we do get a diagnosis, and I desperately hope we do, we will need to fund the treatment and remediation to get Topher well and thriving again.

Either way, without the additional money for either of these outcomes, Topher's future is very bleak.

What Amount Are We Short By?:

Frankly, we don't know. Assuming we get a diagnosis, it might be a fairly straightforward course of antibiotics, and further hospitalisation to keep him stable and on his way to recovery.

But - we might need more tests. Hopefully they'll be lab analytics as opposed to exploratory scans like X-rays or cardiograms, which tend to be more expensive. And these will be on top of what I expect will be a lengthier period of hospitalisation and the associated inpatient care.

I've set the first target at £500, as an arbitrary figure. We're currently awaiting updates from the vets as to what the ultrasounds have found.

I have no idea if there is much in the way of expendable income out there at the moment. Times are tough for everyone, but any amount you can possibly spare, no matter how big or small, will go some way to helping save Topher's life, and give him the opportunity to experience the many years he should have left as our handsome hooligan.

Topher

Thank you for reading our plea, and we wish you and your furry friends health and fortune for the future.

Soph xxx