Paws for Life Rescue: Emergency Medical Grant Report
How did this grant help your organization and the pets in your care?
The grant was used to help with the very high medical bills (over $2,200) for a cat requiring eye surgery.
The generosity of the Petfinder Foundation helps us continue to save more lives and ensures the health and care of adoptable pets.
How many pets did this grant help?
One cat
Please provide a story of one or more specific pets this grant helped.
Shortly after intake, it was noticed Veronica was having some disturbing green discharge and watery eyes while living at Petco as an in-store cat. It seemed like a mild URI, so she went into foster care. Veronica started some eye ointment, and her eyes cleared up a bit. After finishing her 10 days of eye ointment, Veronica still would get occasional discharge, but both eyes appeared normal. Then one day her foster mom came home from work to find Veronica lethargic, not interested in food, and both eyes completely swollen. She was rushed to the vet and began a new round of eye ointment and antibiotics.
She began improving, but then then things once again went downhill. Her right eye was becoming normal, but her left eye was so swollen you could not see the globe of the eye, just a swollen third eyelid. The vets could not determine what was causing these issues, but continued medications, antibiotics and eye ointments.
Finally, once the swelling cleared up, it became apparent that her eye was badly damaged. The globe of her eye looked cloudy and unrecognizable (second photo). After speaking to a veterinarian, it was determined she needed a specialist. An appointment was set up, but days before her appointment she developed a “pimple” on her cloudy globe. The day of her appointment, the ophthalmologist ran several tests, and did a very thorough exam and determined Veronica’s eye had actually ruptured. The globe was now cloudy and underneath all that cloudiness was filled with debris from what used to be her eye.
Surgery was scheduled and Veronica had her eye removed. The ophthalmologist believed that Veronica will recover wonderfully, and be a happy, one-eyed kitty. However, the vets, specialist and the rescue are all still unsure of what could have caused this in the first place. A biopsy of her eye will be sent out for histopathology.
The adorable caged picture of her in a Detroit-area animal shelter (first photo) quickly made her Paws for Life’s “poster child.” It saddened us to think that she would likely be passed over a lot for adoption due to her having only one eye.
However, after her surgery, Veronica (renamed Kiwi) was adopted by her foster family! Here is their story: “She was the perfect addition to our home. Only having one eye hasn’t slowed her down one bit. She loves shoulder rides, so much so that she’s always trying to climb up my husband. When she was small, she liked to sleep on my husband’s face at night. Now she weighs 9 lbs. and I’m happy to report that she never grew out of that habit 🙂 Her favorite toy in the world is a little spring that she will chase around our wood floors for hours. She has even learned to fetch. We recently found that she LOVES to watch the TV show Planet Earth. She will sit on the couch and binge watch Planet Earth on Netflix. Unfortunately, in December the vet found that her lymphoma (the root cause for her eye issue) had spread to a few lymph nodes and her spleen. Kiwi is now going through chemotherapy treatment and is responding exceptionally well.”
