I'm seeking aid for my cat's emergency surgery and medications.

Binx is my tiny, one year old cat that my neighbors gave me last October. They rescued Binx off the street as a 6 week old kitten, but couldn't take care of them because of their large dogs. When I first saw Binx they were sleeping in a cardboard box under a tree with a few blankets. When my neighbors asked if I could take a second cat in I said yes.

I fell in love with Binx at first sight, and they've been living with me since. They're an incredibly calm and sweet cat that never (intentionally) starts fights or drama with the other pets, preferring to play with their toys or sun in a window. Binx loves wet food, shrimp, salmon, and chin scritches. They prefer to chirp and coo like a pigeon instead of meowing, and when they do open their mouth they don't make any noise. (They aren't deaf or mute, just odd.)

Binx has become a staple of not just my daily life, but of my roommates and friends too, who love to come over to play with them.

After weeks of gradual socialization they became great friends with my sister's chaotic white kitten, Wei Po. They often play fight and tumble around in a giant ball of fur.

A few months after getting Binx, another kitten was given to us by neighbors who were unable to care for her. Ginger was initially very cautious and skittish, but Binx's calm demeanor made them approachable to even the most anxious kitten I've ever met. They spend every day playing, cuddling, and grooming one another. Binx is her best friend and a fundamental part of her daily life.

Binx's first heat caught me off guard, coming much earlier than I anticipated as someone who hasn't had to spay my own pet before now.

Unfortunately, heat inflames the uterus too much for safe surgery, and Binx was going in and out of heat at a pace I foudn hard to predict.

The clinic I wanted to go through offers charitable low-cost sterilization, but because of their generously low prices the appointments get snatched up quickly. That means when you do camp out on their site and snatch an appointment, you can't really choose when it is, and it's often weeks or months away.

The unpredictability of the heats and the rigidity of the clinic schedule met, and the night before Binx's long-awaited appointment they went into heat. I was forced to cancel and I lost my deposit. I had to start the process all over again.

Not long after that last heat ended Binx started acting as if in pain. They started shedding and grooming excessively, and seemed to lose energy. Their appetite didn't recover as much after their heat ended either. Initially I thought it was stress, maybe a conflict with another cat or the neighbors dogs being too loud, but then the discharge started. Large amounts of highly unusual fluids that prompted me to make an appointment right then.

Under medical advice I fasted Binx all night, then took them into the vet's office for the exam and ultrasound. The veterinarian confirmed that it was an open-cervix pyometra infection. A fatal condition caused by an infection during a cats heat. The only timely and certain way to treat pyometra at this stage and severity would be a specialized sterilization procedure.

The medications and surgery needed to cure the inevitably lethal infection would be almost 18 times the cost of the affordable sterilization surgery I had planned on, but any time I spent waiting and saving money could risk Binx going septic.

I immediately put the checkup cost - nearly $250 - on my credit card, but I had only just gotten into orientation for a new job and didn't have the credit limit to cover the whole emergency surgery. I had to call several different people to beg for money, with the promise I'd pay them back as much as soon as possible. In addition to covering any fees they accrued by having to put these expenses on their own credit cards.

I'm now $1746.23 in debt and my paychecks aren't going to come in fast enough to avoid interest or credit card fees.

Any money that you or a friend of yours donates will be used to pay off the debt so I can take Binx in for checkups, keep wet food stocked so they can eat their medications easily, and get my other cats the medical attention they deserve.

Binx came home to me safely. I'm not sure what I would do with myself if Binx had complications or didn't survive, especially since I'd also have this debt to shoulder. Binx is currently on antibiotics and pain medications and eating well. Ginger is thrilled to have her playmate back and they cuddled and sunned themselves in the window the whole day after Binx came home.

Even if Binx recovers perfectly with no complications, we're not out of the woods yet, Ginger's FeLV and FiV booster shots are coming up, and she'll need to be spayed soon, before she goes into her first heats and scheduling a spay appointment becomes difficult like Binx's was. I can't risk her getting an infection too.

In addition to Binx and Ginger, I also have an older (3-ish years old) adopted cat who's overdue for a checkup and is having a lot of stress reactions that could just as easily be an illness as it could annoyance at the kittens for stinking up their turf.

Any amount you can give to this fund -or any place you can share it- are invaluable to Binx, Ginger, Carrot, and myself. When the outstanding debts of Binx's surgery are covered, then maintaining the three's health will be far simpler. Thank you for reading this far, and if you don't have much to give, know that just sharing this fundraiser does so much for us.

Health and Happiness,

Buck