Asking for help with paying for Sylvie’s life saving surgery. When faced with the choice of extremely expensive surgery or euthanasia, we chose to save her. Several friends suggested I set this up as a way to assist us. So here it is. I’m not skilled at asking for money, and we’d have chosen to save her even without help. But every little bit helps. So here it is. You can read her story below.

We live in an area that seems to draw a lot of wandering kitties. I suspect some of the apartments nearby see cats abandoned when people move. Or they move in to discover a no pets policy. Whatever the reason, we put food out during the day for the neighborhood strays. One of the other neighbors is good about capturing and running them to the Feral Cat Coalition to spay and neuter in order to try and control the population. But new ones are always appearing. They wander through, collect a few pettings, eat some food and go about their important kitty business.

Back at the end of February 2024, one new stray showed up and decided to call our house home right away. She followed me in to the garage and settled right in for the long haul. From the start, she was a little bit “spicy”, but clearly also not truly feral since she loved to curl up in my lap and sleep, or greet me with enthusiastic leg rubs when I came into the garage. An absolute sweetheart (when she wasn’t being spicy). We bonded. I spent the next several weeks posting “found” cat posting and scouring EVERY lost cat posting I could find. None turned up.

I had begun to wonder if her “spicy” personality was due to some sort of illness. She’d be sleeping on my lap peacefully and suddenly wake and swat or bite at my arm or hand like I’d hurt her. It was ver puzzling behavior I didn’t understand (yet). I knew we needed to make a vet appointment sooner rather than later to check for a micro chip and check her out to see what was going on. However, she wasn’t going to wait for that. On March 9th, I noticed a change in her eating and drinking patterns, and she no longer raced over to me when I entered the garage. Previously she’d follow me outdoors to the back patio when I’d go out, and follow me back in when I’d return. She didn’t do that. Her food was almost untouched by the next day and her litter box usage wasn’t what it had been. I kept an eye on it. It didn’t improve. So on Monday the 11th, we got her into the cat carrier and spent 10 hours at the pet ER.

We learned she did not have a chip. They did X-Rays. Those revealed what was really going on inside of her. At some point she had been involved in some sort of severe trauma - possibly hit by a car, a severe fall, or heaven forbid - severe abuse. She was suffering from a Diaphragmatic Hernia. Most of her organs were up in her chest cavity. One lung was completely collapsed (due to no room because of vital organs filling her chest). The other lung was functioning at about half capacity. We were faced with only two options: VERY expensive surgery or euthanasia.

We questioned and probed a lot. How old was she? Uncertain, but probably 1-2 years. We had them test her for viral infections (F.I.V. and Feline Leukemia). Both negative. What was the success rate of this kind of surgery? Very high (turns out in my post-surgery research that it is as high as 93% success rate in felines). So we had to decide whether to spend an eye-blistering amount of money, for an otherwise healthy young cat, on a highly successful surgical procedure, that would give her a long and happy life - or to end her life right then and there. Talk about a tough decision. Surgery would strip our savings and max our credit.

This was one really tough decision. In the end, it didn’t feel right to end the life of an innocent animal when a routine (turns out this is not an uncommon condition), easily survivable, surgery would fix the problem and give her the opportunity for a long and happy life. We just couldn’t give the order to kill her. So we plundered our savings and opened a new line of credit to claim this cat as ours and save her life.

The good news is she pulled through the surgery and appears to be healing well (we have the follow up visit later this week)! She is ready to be free of her Cone of Shame and let loose into house again. Now we are faced with the task of paying off the debt. Anything you can share would be appreciated and go directly to paying the charges for this expensive surgery. Even a $5 donations will help. Or sharing this post with other animal lovers.