Barney is an Angel Now.

[Emeraldgreen]

Thank you Jenn, Mary, Randi and Critters so much for your posts and support!! I'm heading over there again after work. I do think he should get to a vet too. My only concern is that Angela indicated that if his blood work does show kidney failure then it would probably be best to put him down. I told her that my cat Jade went on to live for 4 good years after her diagnosis with fluids and care. The thing is that she will be leaving my coworkers house soon and I don't want her to put him down before she leaves. My hope is to get him feeling and looking better so my coworker won't be able to resist him when she gets home and then when he gets bloodwork, she will still want to keep him despite the results.
I know this sounds like a stupid plan and maybe it is. What do you guys think?
It's kind of a weird situation because this cat isn't mine to make the calls and I'm not able to take him in myself (hubby would absolutely kill me) but I want to try and do everything I can to help him stick around and have a good life.

I absolutely appreciate the wonderful offers for some donations and Jenn is sending some Revolution in the mail for his next treatment, which is so great.
I would want him to go to my vet as they are such good people and so good at what they do. I could call them and see if people could call them to make a donation on his behalf? I don't have a paypal account. I did set one up a long time ago and I just used it to send a donation to someone but it's not set up to receive anything. I'm kind of nervous about connecting it to my bank account. That's probably stupid too.

I guess the main goal right now is to get him examined and get a geriatric panel done on him and maybe dewormed. I know my vet charges around 60.00 (Canadian) for an exam. I'm guessing that bloodwork would be about 120.00 but I need to call and find out for sure. One drontal tab is probably about 15.00 but I'll find that out too.

Medusa wrote:

He may be deaf because his ears are in such bad shape w/mites or whatever. If the vet can get his ears cleaned up, he may be able to hear again. It's so dangerous to have him stay outdoors if he can't hear because he may not know when danger is upon him.

That would be so great if he could hear again. We figured that the loss of hearing was probably from all the mites/infection and debris but I didn't even think to hope that he could get some hearing back. That would be so awesome. I'll start praying about that ASAP!
Thank you for your offer to help. I know it is so hard to choose sometimes who to help as there are so many in need and times are as hard as they get right now. This guy sure is in rough shape though and I appreciate so much that he has touched your heart.
Thank you Randi as well!!

Critters wrote:

Poor guy! I'd consider neutering when he's stronger, mainly because that would be an ideal time to give his ears a GOOD cleaning and medicating, and to see what's going on in them. I can't imagine he'd let somebody do too much with them awake.

You wouldn't believe how tolerant this guy is with regard to his ears. He does pull back when he's had enough but I spent a good 5 minutes straight trimming away at this scab that had scabs built on top of that etc.. We didn't attempt to clean inside his ears though yet and that might be a different story.

I received some advice via PM regarding Ivermectin and using that to clean his ears but now I'm wondering if we shouldn't mess with them too much and let a vet have a good look and steer us in the right direction. It might be something that requires Surolan or something like that. We're just guessing it's mites but that could be wrong.

[Randi]

Lara, I just sent you a PM, but forgot to say...

Any chance you could call your vet and ask what might be the right thing to use for his ear - something that won't be harmful, whatever the problem is. Scrawny must feel awful with that ear.

[Emeraldgreen]

Lara, I just sent you a PM, but forgot to say...

Any chance you could call your vet and ask what might be the right thing to use for his ear - something that won't be harmful, whatever the problem is. Scrawny must feel awful with that ear.

Hi Randi, got your PM, thank you.
I just called my vet and explained the situation. They said they are not taking any new clients so the only way to get Scrawny in is to put him under my file, which I did. I asked them if they would be willing to accept any donations over the phone from my friends () and they said that would be fine. I spoke with a receptionist named Anna and she said she would post a note at the front desk so everyone would know what it was about if someone called.
I have the vet info and will PM it to those interested. Thanks again.
We'll try and get him in to the vet soon.

p.s. I agree that Scrawny should have a new name. He is currently under that name at the vet because I couldn't come up with one but we should change it. Any suggestions?

[Moesha]

That kitty just breaks my heart. If you get vet info about making donations, please let me know. I may not be able to contribute very much, but I know every small donation helps alot. Thank you so much for helping him.

[critters]

I'm in red.

I don't have a paypal account. I did set one up a long time ago and I just used it to send a donation to someone but it's not set up to receive anything. I'm kind of nervous about connecting it to my bank account. That's probably stupid too. You don't have to do anything special to get $$ via PayPal, and to get your $$ out you can ask them to send you a check. Slow, but effective.

I guess the main goal right now is to get him examined and get a geriatric panel done on him and maybe dewormed. I know my vet charges around 60.00 (Canadian) for an exam. I'm guessing that bloodwork would be about 120.00 but I need to call and find out for sure. One drontal tab is probably about 15.00 but I'll find that out too. You can get 3 Droncit for $10 at KV; they add a little, $5, I think, if you don't make their minimum purchase.
Critters wrote:

You wouldn't believe how tolerant this guy is with regard to his ears. He does pull back when he's had enough but I spent a good 5 minutes straight trimming away at this scab that had scabs built on top of that etc.. We didn't attempt to clean inside his ears though yet and that might be a different story. I'd be concerned about using anything in them until he's on antibiotics and all because of the likelihood of making him dig more.

I received some advice via PM regarding Ivermectin and using that to clean his ears but now I'm wondering if we shouldn't mess with them too much and let a vet have a good look and steer us in the right direction. It might be something that requires Surolan or something like that. We're just guessing it's mites but that could be wrong. Ivermectin is effective ONLY for mites, and it irritated Spunk's ears something terrible; luckily, she was out of it from being spayed. I'd say he also has at least bacteria because the front of his L ear looks gooey & pus-y in the pic. He may well have fungus too.

[Medusa]

That would be so great if he could hear again. We figured that the loss of hearing was probably from all the mites/infection and debris but I didn't even think to hope that he could get some hearing back. That would be so awesome. I'll start praying about that ASAP!

In the last litter of kittens that I rescued, one of the them had ear mites so badly that I and the person who adopted her both wrongly assumed that she was deaf and I mean stone deaf. As it turned out, she had ear mites so badly that she couldn't hear but once that got taken care of she could hear just fine. If Scrawny does have an ear fungus, that's certainly treatable. Yodie has had that problem ever since the polyp was removed from her ear but I have her on drops and salve and she's doing aces.

Thank you again, Lara, for doing this for the little guy. I PM'd you, too.

[Emeraldgreen]

Hi guys, I'm at work so can only log on for a minute but Angela has the cat in the car and just showed up here. She was going to take him to another vet and was racing to catch the ferry. This other vet is a horrible mean man ( I know firsthand because I briefly worked for him, very briefly!) so thankfully she stopped in to talk with me first! She hadn't gotten my message about my vet yet. So I just called my vet and they said that they will try and squeeze Scrawny in today if she drops him off at 3:30. She just got on the ferry now. She said that he wasn't doing well and peed on his blanket and is acting kind of strange.

Thanks again for all the posts and support! This thing is moving a little faster than I had planned but maybe that's a good thing.

[Medusa]

Oh, I hope he can hold on until the vet takes a look at him. You're right, Lara, maybe it's a good thing that it's moving quickly. Time may be critical. Prayers going up for this sweet boy.....

[Emeraldgreen]

Okay, just got off the phone with the vet. She is really great. Poor Scrawny has ALOT going on. He has hyperthyroid which is why he is so hungry and so skinny. He has diabetes which is why is peeing inappropriately. He has a high white blood cell count so is fighting an infection of some kind. She is wondering if he has FIP but said there is no way to know for sure. He also has a growth in his ear that is either a polyp or a tumour that bleeds easily. She said she would normally treat it with steroids but because of the diabetes she can't right now. They did a urinaylisis, blood work and a physical exam.
She said she is not convinced that he has FIP though because she said there is no fluid build up though she did say there was a dry version.

I asked the vet if the diabetes was the type that required insulin shots and she said there is insulin dependent diabetes and there is non-insulin dependent but she doesn't know if this is a result of his being starved for so long. She said we could try a low carb diet and see if things improve. If things do improve and the diabetes is just temporary, then she said she could administer a steroid to try and shrink the polyp if it is a polyp. Otherwise he would need surgery which is not an option due to finances.

She put me on the phone with Angela who was there and we had to decide in that split second whether he lives or not, it was so *&^%$ brutal. I could not let him be put down without trying so I gave them my credit card number and asked them not to call my house because I need to keep this a secret from my husband. I shouldn't have done it but it felt like the right thing to do at that moment. I'm writing this while at work because hubby is usually sitting right behind me in the den!

I asked the vet if she could give him the Convenia injection instead of pills because my coworkers partner stopped in today and said that Angela is leaving tomorrow. I have to confirm this with her because I thought she was staying a bit longer. I know he will give the cat food but meds might be a challenge. The vet said that she would give Scrawny the Convenia injection and send him home with a month's supply of hyperthyroid pills. I'm hoping that my coworkers guy will be okay mixing the tablet in with the food. I might pick up some pill pockets tomorrow. Not sure if he can have the pill pockets with diabetes though.

Scrawny needs to be on a low carb diet. I told the vet I had about a 1/3 of a bag of Taste of the Wild which is very low carb but it's dry. So she is sending him home with some cans of Hills W/D that the pills can be mixed with.

Well, that's the scoop. My head is spinning. Angela is bringing him home and I'm going to head over there after work to see how he's doing. I'll take another pic or two. The vet cleaned out his ears and Angela said you wouldn't believe how much stuff came out. Poor guy.

[Moesha]

Did they give any indication as to the kitty's age?

[Catty1]

I hope Scrawny does ok...thank goodness his ears are cleaner. I wonder if he can hear now?

Prayers are all I can give right now...still in a really tight spot. But there are people here who are donating some money, so I hope that diminishes or wipes out the charges on your credit card.

I pray he will bloom a bit now and enjoy love and better health! THANK YOU - and Angela - for helping this boy.

[catwhispers]

Sorry this is long, but hopefully there is a lot of good info that might help.

If Scrawny needs surgery, perhaps some help can be found somewhere in this list. I recommend checking it before doing anything further as I think some of them will only kick in if there has been no payment to the vet as yet. I've listed the ones I could find below.

Another idea. When I took in Deja Vu she was a stray who was very, very pregnant and the kittens, who were born just a few days later, began to develop respiratory problems. I am on a fixed income and had an older cat at the time who was diabetic and having problems, so my money had been going towards him, and unfortunately I could not afford to take them all to the vet. I called all the local no-kill rescue groups and one of them was willing to help. They paid for me to take one kitten to a vet they dealt with, and arranged for the vet, if medication would be needed, to give me medication for all, including the mother, because if one had a respiratory infection, they all did, and they didn't have to pay for 6 office visits, just one. That's exactly what happened, she gave me meds for all, and even though they didn't ask, I kicked in as much money as I could toiwards it. Thank goodness that was all that was wrong, the medicine worked, and when the rescue group brought them all to be checked out by their vet before putting them up for adoption, he said they were among some of the healthiest kittens that had come across his path in a long time. I felt good about that. Deja Vu and one baby (see my avatar!) stayed here, as Fuzz, my other kitty, had passed during this time. I ended up fostering for this group eventually.

The point of all this is that perhaps a local no-kill rescue group, because the woman is attempting to help a stray, may be willing to offer some aid. Maybe not, but it's worth a try.

Here's a list of places that might help:

In Memory of Magic (IMOM) is dedicated to insuring that no companion animal has to be euthanized simply because their caretaker is financially challenged.
http://www.imom.org
IMOM, Inc
PO Box 282
Cheltenham, MD 20623
Phone (866)-230-2164 Fax (301)-599-1852

United Animal Nations established the LifeLine fund in 1997 to aid companion animals in times of life-threatening emergencies when their caregivers, with low or no incomes, are unable to afford the entire cost of treatment.
http://uan.org/lifeline/index.html
United Animal Nations
P.O. Box 188890
Sacramento, California 95818
Telephone: (916) 429 2457 fax: (916) 429 2456
LifeLine Fund - http://www.uan.org/index.cfm?navid=28

Help-A-Pet is a nonprofit organization, which provides financial assistance for the medical care of pets whose guardians are unable to afford the expense
http://www.help-a-pet.org/home..html
Help-A-Pet
P. O. Box 244
Hinsdale, Illinois 60521
Telephone: (630) 986-9504 fax: (630) 986-9141

Feline Veterinary Emergency Assistance Programs provides financial assistance for emergency medical care for cats.
http://www.fveap.org/sys-tmpl/door/
FVEAP
1641 Elizabeth Lane
Yuba City, CA 95993
Fax: 888-301-4264

Cats in Crisis:
http://www.catsincrisis.org/crisisFund.html

Cats in Crisis Stripes Fund
http://www.catsincrisis.org/stripesFund.html

Cats in Crisis Gillie Fund
http://www.catsincrisis.org/gillieFund.html

FUNDING FOR ORGANIZATIONS (Specific animals needing veterinary care):

http://www.catsincrisis.org/
http://www.imom.org

American Animal Hospital Association
http://www.aahahelpingpets.org/home/
"The heartbreak happens all too often ? a pet owner is unable to
afford treatment and their sick or injured companion animal pays the
price. If the owner is elderly, disabled or on a fixed income, the
cost of care may be too much of a stretch for their pocketbook.
Perhaps they have been victimized by crime, property loss or a job
layoff and are experiencing a temporary financial hardship ? making it
too difficult to afford pet care. And some animals, brought to clinics
by Good Samaritans, don't have an owner to pay for treatment. Whatever
the situation, the fact remains the same: When sick or injured animals
are unable to receive veterinary care, they suffer. Through the AAHA
Helping Pets Fund, veterinary care is possible for sick or injured
pets even if they have been abandoned or if their owner is
experiencing financial hardship."

Angels 4 Animals
www.Angels4Animals.org
"Angels4Animals, a non-profit organization and a program of Inner
Voice Community Services, has a mission to serve as the guardian
angel of animals whose caretakers find themselves in difficult
financial situations. At Angels4Animals we believe that animal owners
should not have to say goodbye to the animals that they love. Our
work is accomplished in conjunction with veterinary clinics across
the country, eager to assist as many animals, and their owners, as
possible. Our services range from financial aid to complete treatment
to those pets and pet owners in need."

Care Credit
www.carecredit.com
A credit card company for health care, including veterinary care.
"CareCredit, the leader in patient/client financing, has helped more
than 3 million patients/clients get the treatment or procedures they
needed and wanted. With a comprehensive range of plan options, for
treatment or procedure fees from $1 to over $25,000, we offer a plan
and a low monthly payment to fit comfortably into almost every
budget."

Feline Veterinary Emergency Assistance (FVEAP)
http://www.fveap.org/sys-tmpl/door/
"The NEED & The HELP: Seniors, People with disabilities, People who
have lost their job, Good Samaritans who rescue a cat or kitten - any
of these folks may need financial assistance to save a beloved
companion."

The Feline Veterinary Emergency Assistance Program is a nonprofit 501
(c)(3) organization that provides financial assistance to cat and
kitten guardians who are unable to afford veterinary services to save
their companions when life-threatening illness or injury strikes.

Help-A-Pet
http://www.help-a-pet.org/home.html
"Our efforts focus on serving the elderly, the disabled, and the
working poor. For lonely seniors, physically/mentally challenged
individuals and children of working parents, pets represent much more
than a diversion."

IMOM
http://www.imom.org
"Mission Statement:
Helping people help pets. To better the lives of sick, injured and
abused companion animals. We are dedicated to insure that no
companion animal has to be euthanized simply because their caretaker
is financially challenged."

The Pet Fund
http://thepetfund.com/
"The Pet Fund is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit association that
provides financial assistance to owners of domestic animals who need
urgent veterinary care. Often animals are put down or suffer
needlessly because their owners cannot afford expensive surgery or
emergency vet visits. Companion animal owners must often make the
difficult decision to put an animal down or neglect urgent medical
needs because of the costs involved. The purpose of the Pet Fund is
to work towards a future where decisions about companion animal
medical care need never be made on the basis of cost."

United Animal Nations
http://www.uan.org/lifeline/index.html
"The mission of LifeLine is to help homeless or recently rescued
animals suffering from life-threatening conditions that require
specific and immediate emergency veterinary care. We strive to serve
Good Samaritans and rescue groups who take in sick or injured
animals. In certain cases, LifeLine can also assist senior citizens
and low-income families pay for immediate emergency veterinary care."