Lando Calrissian, also known as the questionably sentient dust bunny of Vitamix saga fame, is a nearly 15-year-old domestic short hair void, and he’s having a tough time right now. A few months ago, Jess and Nikii, the middle-aged lesbians who feed him and his brothers (George, Destroyer of Worlds AKA the sentient potato and Max AKA the sentient soccer ball) and scoop their poop noticed that he was getting really snorfly—sneezy and congested and uncomfortable. Off he went to his vet and a 21-day course of antibiotics mostly cleared it up…until we stopped the antibiotics and it started again.

About three weeks ago, it got much worse. Tons of thick, green-and-pink-tinged mucus dripping from his left nostril (it matters that it’s only one nostril, diagnostically), sneezing fits, literal snot bubbles. I wiped his nose a million times a day, much to his amiable confusion—Lando is made of love, fluff, and no thoughts—but there was still more goop.

Two Fridays ago, I brought him back to the vet for it. We did an exam, discussed theories—Lando is on lysine for general intermittent snorfliness throughout the past couple years, but this seemed Different and also specific to one nostril, which is noteworthy—and decided to start with another round of antibiotics before trying anything more invasive.

That night, at about 1:30 in the morning, Lando was happily snuggled up on my lap and had been for about an hour, head down, when he lifted his head and I saw a big drip hanging from that left nostril. So I grabbed a tissue to wipe it—and it was more blood than snot. There was a blood spot on the blankets where his head had been resting. Poor Beeb! Off we went to the emergency vet, where we were reassured that the nosebleed itself wasn’t an emergency (thankfully it stopped quickly) but that it meant we needed to do more diagnostics if the antibiotics he was on didn’t completely cure it.

For the past eleven days we’ve been treating him in two ways. The first is daily doxycycline to deal with any potential bacterial infection (it also acts as an anti-inflammatory, which helps). The second is by yeeting him into the bathroom with a hot running shower twice a day--sometimes with one of us in the actual shower, other times with one of us hanging out on the floor in an increasingly steamy and oppressive room with a confused but still always-game Lando happily and burblingly rumbling on her lap.

And his symptoms are better. Kind of. Somewhat. They’re not as bad as they were two weeks ago, for sure, but they have not cleared up entirely. And the super fun part is that, because of the nature of doxycycline, even if what’s going on is a foreign body, or a polyp, or even one of the more terrifying possibilities like a facial cancer of some sort, we WOULD expect to see temporary symptom improvement from a course of doxycycline—just not full resolution, and with his symptoms likely worsening again once he comes off the meds.

So yesterday, he went back to visit his wonderful vet for a recheck, and we came up with a plan of action together.

Lando is going to be referred to the internal medicine department at a nearby multispecialty vet which we’ve had great experiences with in the past—they took out Lando’s kidney a year ago when we had a big cancer scare, and took amazing care of him. They also took care of George when he decided to eat Not Food a few months back to the tune of $7000 emergency surgery. Diagnostics are internal medicine’s wheelhouse and exactly what they do—and they have lots of tools with which to do it. We will get our sweet Beeb (who will no doubt be confused, but game to make new friends) a CT scan and possibly a rhinoscopy, which is an exploration of his nasal cavities and surrounding areas via a teeny tiny camera to see if there’s anything in there to worry about, as long as he’ll be under general anesthesia anyway.

We don’t like putting Lando through diagnostics that can be tough on him, both body and magnificently vacant little mind and spirit, especially for something that could end up being nothing more exciting or scary than chronic rhinitis causing structural changes in a cat who could possibly have had a common chronic viral infection among cats for at least a few years, (Most shelter cats like Max have it, for the record, and as such most cats, like Lando, who live with one)—but there are enough worrisome things, especially the nosebleed and the fact that it’s really only one nostril causing the problem, that it really is time to do a little more investigation. If there’s something going on here that could be scary, we want to catch it early enough that we can get out ahead of it and a potentially solvable problem doesn’t become unsolvable.

As with so many things with respect to our trio of cats, this is all gonna be very pricey—and already has, frankly. With vet visits and meds so far, since the snorfling first started—emergency vet included, which is already more expensive than a routine vet visit—we’re up over $1000, and that will soar much higher. CT under anesthesia along with attendant medications and monitoring, based on estimates from our historical data from other medical imaging and CTs in the past, going to run us in the range of 2-3K. Rhinoscopy? Longer sedation, more medications, the actual procedure, and hospitalization in the ICU of at least one night for post-procedure monitoring (they take biopsies, so they want to make sure there’s neither bleeding nor difficulty breathing). Another 1-2K, I’m guessing. And then he will likely need some form of treatment.

Veterinary insurance is hopefully going to cover a portion of these expenses (we can’t guarantee that’s true until they approve the actual claims), but far from all of them because of the nature of our coverage, coinsurance, and our deductibles. Those who know us are already aware that all three of our boys have special medical needs, chronic diseases, and prescription food: Two have chronic kidney disease (Lando’s is complicated by having only one remaining kidney), two have clinical levels of anxiety because they take after their mothers, one has feline idiopathic cystitis, one has severe cutaneous allergies, as well as asthma, two have arthritis because they’re ancient and decrepit (but don’t tell the Destroyer of Worlds that), and so on.

Because of this, the cats’ baseline expenses before any veterinary visits or prescription meds are concerned (they’re on a bunch) are concerned, runs us between 1,750 and 2,000 per month. These expenses cover things like multiple prescription foods (Each costs $110 for 24 cans, and they go through a total of four cans a day between the three of them) litter, pheromone diffusers and collars for anxiety, probiotics, supplements (peer-reviewed and vet-recommended, I promise we’re not giving them snake oil) for arthritis and anxiety and kidney disease, etc), and more. Every single month. There are also about $400-500 per month in prescription medications. We both have day jobs—I, Jess, am a psychotherapist in private practice and my wife works in civil service with the water board, and we get by, but we’re definitely not independently wealthy.

This being the case, and because we know if we don’t give people a chance to help out sweet Lando, folks will start asking, we are putting up this GoFundMe so that anyone who feels moved to help us donate to take the best care of our best Beeb has an opportunity to do so. As always, nobody is ever in any way compelled to donate. There are no prizes or rewards on offer for people who wish to be generous, I’m afraid, this is only if you have the urge to and can comfortably afford to help a sweet, marvelously vacant, perfect void made of love and his Mômthërs get through definitely expensive and maybe difficult diagnostics and potential illness of some kind. We are starting with a goal of $5200 (the extra 200 is to cover credit card processing fees/GoFundMe fees), but the total may rise as we find out more about what he needs. In the unlikely event that there are excess funds left over above and beyond his rhinitis veterinary bills, they will go toward the cats’ other medical and maintenance expenses—we’ve got plenty!

We promise to keep y’all in the loop as we know more. In the meantime, our Beeb is living his best Beeb life, beebing beebily around, just doing so a little snorfily. It doesn’t make him any less charming or sweet.

And above all, very most importantly, don’t forget that even if he’s never met you, Lando loves you. ‍⬛ That’s just how he rolls.

So do we. ❤️