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Vet Struggles to Solve Puzzle of Kitten with Labored Breathing Who Isn't Eating
Guest Contributor
My wife and I had just put down my beloved cat Bear. He suffered from from a rare gum disease that made it painful for him to eat, chew, and move his mouth. A Hail Mary full mouth tooth extraction hadn't worked. We were devastated.
Three or four days later, I was sitting at my desk at work when my best friend popped in and asked how I was doing. He said, "Hey, wait here." He came back with a kitten that had been found in an abandoned Subaru, and he felt it was destiny to me since I work with Subarus for a living.
The kitten was in bad shape, extremely small, and sounded like it had an upper respiratory infection, among many other issues. I was beyond mad. I didn't think the little girl was going to live! We made an emergency vet visit for her, got her checked out, ear mites cleaned out, fleas taken care of, dewormed, etc. We couldn't get her FIV tested since she was too young, and we had three other cats at home!
So over the next month, we kept her quarantined in our bedroom. We took care of her, but she kept sounding worse and worse. Every week, we took her to our vet and we had to try something different. Nothing was working. She was still small, wasn't eating a lot, and labored to breathe. One day, she just started choking and dry heaving for no reason, so we got her in our car and rushed to the vet. I was driving a bit crazy, and about halfway there, she vomited her full stomach contents on my wife, started breathing fine, and took a nap.
PHOTO: PETER DONATOTurns out she had a huge cyst growing in her throat. We had it surgically removed, and almost overnight she grew into this beautiful cat.
When we got her, we didn't want her, we only wanted to foster her until she got better. By that time, it was too late. We loved her way too much!
And that's how we got Cali.
Story submitted by Peter Donato from Allentown, Pennsylvania.
This story was originally shared on The Animal Rescue Site. Share your very own rescue story here!