Em, here—recently, our family's cat, Niklaus (7 yrs), has developed an inner-ear hematoma. He has an ear infection in both ears right now, so this was likely caused by him shaking his head when feeling discomfort. Draining the hematoma is typically a really easy and straight forward procedure, but Niklaus unfortunately has a prior history slightly complicating matters.

In 2021 we came home to find him in his litterbox and unresponsive. He had very quickly developed an extreme case of uroliths (or cystic calculi) in his bladder and urinary tract. More information on this condition can be found here, but they are basically a blockage of crystallized minerals and mucus that causes inflammation and can progress from unnoticeable to deadly in less than a week, though can sometimes take months to become an emergency. Niklaus did not show any major symptoms leading up to the incident, aside from being less interested in letting the kids spend time with him, so we did not have much of a warning. We ended up getting him to an emergency vet where they did not think he would make it through surgery, and when he did, he was there for over a week for monitoring before he was well enough to come home. This ended up being around 8k, that mostly went on credit cards, and we are still paying on that each month along with the special diet he is on that costs around $140/month.

On top of that, because he had this happen, in order to schedule his surgery he has had to have quite a few more tests than they would normally run as well as new vaccines and meds to help him prepare for the surgery.

He has surgery scheduled for Wednesday May 28th. We do not have a 100% confirmed quote on the price of this surgery yet, because his other issues could end up causing complications. The amount we are looking to raise would cover the tests that he has had so far to diagnose the problem and make sure he was ok for surgery, the antibiotics and other meds he has been taking to prepare his stomach, and a portion of what is left over from his prior surgery so that when this new bill comes in we have a card to put it on.

Any amount or just sharing this campaign will be majorly appreciated and I will be posting updates on Twitter @emily_perkovich and IG @undermeyou <3