MedAdopt

Would you love to have a cat but pets aren’t allowed in your building? You’re on the road too much? Loved ones have allergies? Adopt one of ours! Preferably, one in urgent need of the kind of medical attention we cannot provide. Save a life and they’ll continue living with us while sending you progress reports, school photos; they’ll make art for your refrigerator. Is that a “yes?” BLESS you! Please contact us yesterday to make it official: 2much at 2muchcat dot com

URGENT: 15th June 2010
Drew Barrymore

Fabulous Celebrity SpokesCreature Drew Barrymore has had allergy problems every summer of her life, but this year it’s particularly bad. When she sneezes, it’s twenty or thirty times in a row, and sometimes she bursts a blood vessel (that’s her bloody post-sneeze nose, to the left). She’s also very stuffed up, so having difficulty breathing.

Because there was every indication of a sinus infection, we gave her a ten-day course of amoxy. That seemed to do the trick, but the symptoms returned once she was off the antibiotics. She’s looked so uncomfortable, at times, that we’ve actually given her benadryl. Something we thought we’d never do (she’s averaging maybe a dose per week). It does help tone it down, but she hates it and drools copiously when we give her the pill, even when it’s encased in one of our gel-caps.

We have some baytril, but that a little too extreme and could easily do more harm than good. Anyone want to do an eFur Medical Adoption so Drew can visit Dr. Baker? We would be forever down your disposal…

UPDATE: 15th June 2010
Thanks to Elayne Boosler and Tails of Joy, Koko was seen by Dr. Baker last week and is doing much better. Daddy and Greylian weren’t as bad, but are still very much in need of an eFur medical adoption.

URGENT: 27th May 2010
Koko, Daddy, and Greylian

Koko the Sign Language Gorilla-Cat and Greylian were brought to us by the director of another agency. They were found with a couple of psychopaths busted for animal cruelty, and once healed they were deemed “unadoptable.”

It didn’t happen overnight, but at some point they began trusting us; later they began loving us. Not as much as we love them, I’m sure. But as skittish as they can still be, they’re far more often affectionate. Wonderfully strange personalities. A much-loved part of our family…

A few months ago they and Daddy each had a bad tooth. We usually take care of pulling bad teeth, ourselves, but all three declined our offer with sufficient vigor to warrant a trip to the vet’s. When dropping them off I repeated what I’d told them on the phone.

We wanted the bad teeth pulled but we did NOT — DID NOT — want their teeth cleaned! We explained that all three had spent their Wonder Bread Years “in the wild,” and we’d noticed a pattern: dental cleanings for animals who didn’t start having dental cleanings when young seemed to result in death within a few months of the dental cleaning.

So no more dental cleanings for anyone but Her Fuzzy Highness who’d had dental cleanings since kittenhood. Pull teeth, yes. Dental cleanings, no. Dental cleanings after many years of no dental cleanings seems to stir something up, and when I started doing the research I saw that this happens to humans, as well. Deadly infections and heart attacks are just a couple of possible “side effects.” We believe that we and many others have lost a lot of animals, unnecessarily. People, too.

When we picked them up that afternoon and asked how everything had gone, we were told the vet had decided not to pull the teeth — but had given their teeth a deep cleaning since they were “already under.”

We were stunned.
Speechless.

We just stood there, our eyes going from each other to the vet to the carriers to the heavens and ’round again.

Since we didn’t seem headed for the exit the vet began defending his actions. He didn’t think the teeth were as bad as we thought — and they were asleep and their teeth needed a good cleaning. We’d already paid the bill and remained in absolute shock, but somehow we made it to the van.

Within 24 hours all three were crying in pain whenever they tried to eat. It was worse than before the vet. We knew the bad teeth would eventually cause distress if something wasn’t done…but that’s why we’d gone to the vet. Within 48 hours all three of them had raging, lesion-causing infections in their mouths.

These are three of the hardest cats to medicate, but each got a full course of amoxy. Didn’t work. We had some clindadrops, but that’s not working. And we’re all tapped out. They should have many good years left. They were very healthy. They just had loose teeth which needed to be pulled.

All three are wasting, though we hand feed them puréed baby food six times a day. Even that can cause pain, so it takes a long time to get each one to eat a small portion. They’re also now on pedialyte as they’re starting to become dehydrated. Koko is in worse shape than Daddy and Greylian (who are not in good shape). She will die soon if we can’t get her to a vet. But so will Daddy and Greylian.

Taking them back to the vet who caused the problem is not an option. Death would be a certainty. We know a couple of good vets. We just can’t afford them. Won’t you help? Thank you…