This is a story about a little black kitty named Sunny. We found her behind the Sunrise Bistro, a small restaurant on Johns Island in Charleston, SC after a rain storm. Her head was sticking out of a puddle and she was crying because she was close to drowning. She was so weak she couldn't make a sound and was shaking profusely.


We didn't think that she would make it and rushed her to our vet. The vet gave us an antibiotic cream to apply to her eyes three times a day because they were infected and swollen shut. At that point, we didn't know if she was going to retain either one of her eyes. One eye was very badly swollen, oozing and obviously not feasible to keep and the other eye was heading that way quickly.


Within the day, Sunny was eating kitten formula from a syringe, becoming talkative, and bonding to us through snuggling and feeding time.


Within a few days, her good eye cleared up enough for her to be able to see out of and she became more mobile, scampering around the house and interacting with our other pets.


She still had a cold from being wet and living outside so we went back to the vet and got her some nose drops to try and remedy the sneezing and stuffiness. She was gaining weight, yet still so fragile at only 13oz. She was learning how to eat real food, and becoming part of our daily life. We had plans to remove the bad eye as soon as she was large enough and thought that everything was going seemingly well. On Wednesday, July 15th around 2 o'clock in the morning, my fiance and I woke up to Sunny making a moaning noise, breathing intermittently, and completely limp and unresponsive. We rushed her to the Emergency Clinic in West Ashley where they told us she was in the beginning stages of death. We were given an ultimatum: we could put down a hefty deposit of half of the total of what they thought could save her life, which was $1500, or we could hold her while they euthanized her. We asked the vet if she thought there was any chance that Sunny could come out of this, and she said yes. We took that small glimmer of hope and proceeded with any measures necessary to keep our little girl with us. They were able to bring her back and determined that her blood sugar level was 100 points lower than normal, and this was triggering seizures which caused her to use all of her energy and become unresponsive. They put an IV in her juggular as her other veins are too small, and she needed a blood transfusion. They started her on broad spectrum antibiotics. When we left the emergency clinic around 5AM, she was still very weak and in critical condition.

Over the past 2 days she has began to do much better, sitting on her own and receiving food from a syringe. As of this morning, she is much more active, feisty, and talkative with her doctors. She is still receiving blood dextrose to keep her blood sugar levels up, but they are decreasing it to 5% to see if she is able to hold stable. At this point, they are actively and aggressively combatting the infection in her eye as they believe this may be triggering the inflammatory reaction in her tiny body. This will need surgery to correct in a facility where the procedure can be done quickly as it is dangerous for a kitten of her size, less than one pound, to receive anesthesia.

 They are hoping to continue care on her for another week to get her where she can safely have the surgery; however, this is very expensive, as you can imagine. Her costs are already reaching $4,000 and this surgery will probably be an additional $2,000 along with the continuing care in a facility where she has the best chance of survival. My fiance and I work in the food industry and don't have the funds readily available. At this point her progress is promising and we would love to save her as she has proven to be such a fighter.


We would like to thank everyone for taking time out of their days to read Sunny's story, and also for any donations that we receive.

-Kasey, Jeff & Sunny