Posie’s Best Life

Co-organized

Emily Beaulieu and Shannon Cassidy are organizing this fundraiser on behalf of Adam Mandell.

Donation protected

UPDATE AUGUST 2023:
Thank you to all of you who helped us get through a steep financial hurdle. Nearly $8,000 towards Posie’s medical bills was lifesaving for us and for her. We are keeping this GoFundMe open because, while Posie is now in kitty hospice, she still has a life to live and we hope to make her last days (hopefully months!) her best. She requires high doses of insulin twice per day, subcutaneous fluids every other day, kidney medication, and gabapentin for anxiety. She eats almost 7 cans of fancy feast every day on top of it all.

While it isn’t necessary, any help you are able to provide will help us give Posie her best life for as long as she’s able to live it.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for donating and following her story. The strength we’ve gleaned from you all has carried us through and we will not soon forget your generosities.

*We will be posting copies of bills and estimated costs once we receive digital copies from the hospital, see end of photos*

Hi everyone, my name is Emily, and I am the owner of a beloved tortie cat named Posie. In October of 2022, we noticed she had lost a lot of weight in a short span of time and had suddenly become interested in human food. She had always been a grazer, so food aggression was a pretty big shift in her behavior. Shortly thereafter, we discovered she had diabetes and needed to be on insulin.

After a few months and increased doses of insulin, her health continued to decline - we weren’t sure why. She was starving all the time, her insulin had risen to the highest recommended dose, and yet her blood sugar remained dangerously high.

Everything came to a head at the beginning of this year when she went into diabetic crisis and stayed in the ER for several days. We were told to make an appointment with internal medicine because they suspected there had to be another condition making her insulin resistant, although they were going to run a few tests before that date. About 10 days later, we were called and told that she had a condition called acromegaly: a benign tumor had taken root on her pituitary gland, causing it to release excess growth hormone which directly interferes with the absorption of insulin. We kept our internal medicine appointment because they were going to spell out our options for treatment. The appointment was scheduled for January 31st, but she didn’t make it to the appointment before slipping back into diabetic ketoacidosis and needing to go back to the ER. On Saturday, January 28th, when we brought her in to the ER, the vets told us we needed to consider euthanasia because cats in her condition often don’t make it long enough to get off the waitlist for radiation treatment.

My partner and I spent the entire weekend crying and coming to terms with the terrible decision ahead of us. And then we got the call. The vets on Posie’s case called to tell us they’d somehow found her a spot for radiation treatment in the next week.

We still need to prepare for the worst, but in order to give her a fighting chance we need to try.

As you might imagine these treatments (and emergency vet visits) are not cheap. While we are hopeful pet insurance may cover some of the costs, we know that there will be a number of costs that will most likely not be covered. Your donations will go to cover the cost of Posie’s treatments and emergency care. Any donations that go above the cost of treatment or are reimbursed by insurance will be donated to the MSPCA that has been working to save our fur baby.

Posie has been bringing love and joy to my life and the people around her since I adopted her in 2016. She deserves a fighting chance, and we’d be so grateful for any help you’re willing to offer. Thank you for considering!