Help Relieve Toby From His Pain

 


One of Toby's x-rays. You can see that his right leg (pictured on the left side of the image) is lined up perfectly, while his left leg (pictured on the right side of the image with red circle) is very unaligned with no joint room meaning the bones are actually rubbing together and creating bone fragments that are floating around in his leg. I can only imagine how painful that must be!

Why We're Asking For Your Help

Long story short(er), a black cat, Toby, we recently rescued that had  been abandoned outdoors needs a major surgery to repair his broken leg.  He has a constant limp that makes even walking very slow and obviously painful for him to put pressure on the leg. The ortho specialist veterinarian says he has a major knee injury and likely has  had it for a long time now. Sadly, we think it may even be why he was abandoned.  The injury will take surgery to repair and costs around $3,500 (in addition to follow-ups and medications), which must be paid in full prior to the surgery being performed. Unfortunately, most of our Care Credit has been used in the multiple vet visits to get him healthy and his leg injury diagnosed.

So, we are asking for your help in raising $4,500 to cover:

·A prep evaluation visit 2 hours away with the ortho surgery specialist (Dr. Todd Hamilton at Dogwood Veterinary Emergency & Specialty Center in Richmond, VA) that we have scheduled for early next week

·The surgery itself which will again be 2 hours away in Richmond and likely require bloodwork and perhaps an overnight stay

·Any pain or other medications

·Post-surgery follow-up visits which will likely include more x-rays to make sure the leg is healing properly and everything stays in place

·Fees GoFundMe takes from donations (about 8% of all money donated)

We hope to have enough money raised by the beginning of November 2015 so he can get the surgery and be on the road to getting around much easier, and more importantly, not be in constant pain. He walks very slowly with a constant limp, can't jump very high, and can't really play with toys and the other cats because he easily loses his balance, sometimes even falling over.  He also has to take the stairs one at a time slowly, instead of running up and down like a cat normally would. If you'd like to read more about Toby's story, please read below and thank you so much for any help you can give in getting Toby back on his feet, literally. If you could spare even just $5, it will really add up and we would be so thankful. This cat has been through a lot and so deserves a good, happy life.

Toby is such a chill and laid back cat he was even super calm at the vet's office.

More About Toby

We adopted a black cat that we've named Toby (nicknamed Rico Suave because he is just so laid back and loving to everyone), late September 2015 as when  we heard his story, we just couldn't say no. Black cats have such a special place in our heart as they are not only beautiful creatures but often are the last cats to be adopted just because of the color of their fur. Toby was abandoned outside when his original family moved a couple of months ago. He had a new family that was feeding him outside, but they're all severely allergic to cats and wanted him to be able to have a better life indoors. When we went to pick him up, he actually immediately walked into the cat carrier as if he knew he belonged in our family. He was covered in fleas and very irritated skin from them, and very bony from being underweight. At first, he loved attention and immediately won our hearts, but all he really wanted to do was eat and go right back to sleep. He wouldn't move around much and didn't even seem to know what toys were to play with. We got rid of the fleas and worms, put some weight on him and got all his shots and tests, but, unfortunately, he still had a pretty bad limp even though he was obviously feeling much better otherwise. We thought it might have been from all the poking and prodding from the bloodwork and shots, but it was lasting too long to be because of that.

He can be a bit of a goof after one of his favorite activities - eating.

Since he was still limping, we took him back to the vet who could immediately tell he had some sort of leg issue that was painful. He gave us some pain pills to give Toby to help him feel better and reduce inflammation to see if it would get better on its own after a few days. Unfortunately, while we could tell the pills helped with his pain, the limp was still there so we had another vet visit to have some x-rays taken, which you can see below. Our local veterinarian thought he might have a CCL or ACL issue, but sent the x-rays over to an ortho vet specialist to see what he thought.

A few days later we heard back from the ortho specialist, who said that the injury was much worse than our local vet thought and that he would need a major surgery to repair what looks to be a long-term knee injury. He even has bone fragments floating around in his leg that could create more issues the longer they are there. We have an appointment scheduled for early next week in Richmond for an evaluation with Dr. Hamilton and have already been told the surgery will cost around $3,500, which must all be paid upfront. Toby will likely also need pain medications to recover, may need to stay overnight, blood work, follow-up visits, more x-rays to make sure the leg is recovering correctly, etc. that all add to the cost.

It makes me so sad that Toby was ever abandoned because he loves being around us all the time.

He is such a sweet cat that loves to be a cuddle bug and always meows hello, so it left me heartbroken to learn that his original family left him to fend for himself outdoors when they moved. We are elated to be his forever home but do need help in paying for the surgery so he can be normal, happy cat that is pain-free. The vet says it looks like he is around 3 -4 years old, so he should have a long life ahead of him.

Another view of Toby's injured leg.


He is such a good boy that remains calm even at his multiple vet visits.


We have no idea what trauma he had to endure while living outside but would love to help him feel better and live a healthy long life. It is so heartbreaking seeing him want to climb up higher on the cat trees or in the windows to watch cat TV and often hesitating to do so because he knows it’s going to hurt, along with not wanting to pick him up to help him because that will hurt, too. He even loves to play now but often has to do so while laying down because he loses his balance so easily with his injured leg.

Toby will only go up on the bottom tier of the cat trees because it hurts too much otherwise. :(

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and thank you, thank you, thank you for any help you can provide and sharing this with your friends and family. Even just $5 is so appreciated as it all adds up. Any money that happens to be donated over
what we end up spending on Toby’s surgery and follow-ups will be donated to a local animal shelter as
all of our cats are rescues and we know that so many more still need good homes.


He is such a sweet boy that he'll even use our hands as pillows.