BIG BOY THEN...
Big Boy. 11 yo Blue & white Persian.
A year ago you may remember reading on our site about 25
Persians in Crisis. An elderly breeder had health problems and needed
to have
all of her cats removed from the home. Big Boy was one of the oldies
from that situation and one of the last ones to make it out. He looked
so bedraggled no one really wanted to offer him a home. He had lived
most of his 10 years in a very small cage and could barely
walk or stretch. He hadn't been loved by a human in a very long
time. He had been examined by a vet and we knew he was in excellent
overall health, but he had a nasty ear infection. With his bad ears
people were hesitant to adopt, but one of our dedicated foster moms
offered to take him in and work with his ears. We had no idea how bad
his ears were after all of those years without care. When we got him
out of there his ears were so bad that he had blood draining out of
both ear canals. After several rounds of conscientious treatment for
his ears it was obvious that this was no simple ear infection but a
much more serious problem.
We took Big Boy to Dr. Jeff Schmidt at Arbor View Veterinary Clinic in
Roseville. At this state of the art clinic they were able to look at his
ears with a special scope and determine that his ears were "a mess".
Below is the complete veterinary report with all of the big words and
some amazing photos. His diagnosis was severe bilateral otitis, with
stenosis, pus and friable polypoid masses. In the vernacular "his ears
stunk and were filled with pus and lots of nasty stuff". And for good
measure he was found to have a grade 3/6 heart murmur.
With very limited funding and an older cat, the decision to proceed with
what was potentially an expensive surgery was difficult. Thankfully we
were able to get a loan to cover his costs until we could come up
with sponsorship funds to pay the vet bill. Dr. Schmidt performed a
lateral ear canal resection on both ears.
After his surgery Big Boy
spent 10 days with Kimber who was able to monitor him round the clock
and give him multiple medications many times a day. His surgery and
recovery were pronounced a success and he was able to make the long trip
back to his foster mom, Christina, in Humboldt County.
Within hours of having Big Boy returned to her, Christina sent out an
excited update. This kitty who had suffered for so many years was now
acting
like a kitten. An 11 year old cat was bounding and leaping around the
house, and batting his kitty toys like he'd never seen one before.
Big Boy has now made a full recovery and we're hoping you can help our
bank account make a full recovery too. Purebreds Plus receives no
government funding. All of our fosters and volunteers are just that:
volunteers. No one receives a paycheck or compensation for their care of
the cats. As much as possible, our foster moms donate food and litter
costs from their own pockets. We need your help so that we can continue
to save the lives of deserving kitties such as Big Boy. Please visit our
Before & After pages to see just a few of the miracles that are
performed for our cats each year.
Even with Dr. Schmidt giving us a generous discount of 20% the total
bill was just over $1,600. Big Boy's foster mom donated nearly $400 of
her own money to help pay part of his bill. We are needing to raise an
additional $1214.43 to clear our debt for saving this wonderful cat. You
can send a check or you can donate via paypal directly on our website.
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