Help with Goliath's Recovery

4/27: 1610 Update: We made it home! Goliath did great in the car. CSU informed us today that we won't receive our final bill for anywhere from 7-10 business days, but we did pay the deposit. Anxiously awaiting that final total! Although we struggled a little bit with giving Goliath his medication for the first time we are all so happy to be home! His official diagnosis is congestive heart failure and laryngeal paralysis (that caused his aspiration pneumonia). He will be on medication for the rest of his life but we will love him just the same!

4/27: 1220 Update: We are finally in the car! Our sweet boy is doing great! As soon as we get home I'll take some pictures of our sweet boy and also post our final cost for his hospital stay and adjust our goal. I just want to give a huge thank you to the vets/residents and techs at CSU (particularly Dr. Coats!) for taking such great care of our boy and of course a huge thank you to everyone who has donated to help with the cost! Our hearts are full!

4/27: 0830 Update: We just got the phone call that Goliath can go home! Since they speculated that he had aspiration pneumonia yesterday they started him on antibiotics in addition to the diuretic and this morning he is doing amazing! His breathing is pretty much normal. They want to run one more blood test and we will head in to pick up our sweet boy and of course see the total bill for his hospital stay. Thank you everyone that donated we are honestly so blown away by everyone's kindness. When we are in a position to pay it forward we absolutely will, especially if it means saving someone's soul pet.

4/26: 1800 Update: We saw Goliath again this evening. He is looking much better but they want to be absolutely sure he is stable and okay to ride home in the car for 3+ hours so they're keeping him for another night. They have pretty much landed on heart failure as his diagnosis but they don't know if it's actually congenital or if it's transient and something else is causing it. He will most likely be on medication for the rest of his life which we are fine with us long as we have our special boy! They are also speculating that he has laryngeal paralysis, something that dogs usually get. Basically from what I understand the swallowing muscle gets weak and has a hard time preventing food from going down the wrong "pipe" which can result in aspiration pneumonia. Unfortunately to formally diagnose this they would have to put him to sleep and do a LOT of diagnostic imaging (which is insanely expensive) and which I absolutely do not want to do just because of the condition of his heart and the anesthesia risk. It sounds like he will continue to live just fine with laryngeal paralysis, we will just have to be careful to monitor for signs of pneumonia. (We're going to work this out with our vet in Casper!)Thank you so much to everyone who sent us good vibes and of course donated to our cause! We have cried a lot of happy tears today as opposed to many sad ones yesterday. Thank you all so much.

4/26: 1030 Update: We just got to see Goliath. He was very very happy to see us. They did a chest x-ray this morning and his heart is smaller than it was and his lungs are looking better but still not great. They're going to continue to give him medications and then they'll do another chest x-ray at 4 pm to access him to see if he can go home tonight. But from the way things sound, he might be staying one more night. He did look much better than he did yesterday so that made us happy.

4/26: 0900 Update: We just received a call and Goliath is doing a little better. They've been giving him diuretics to get the fluid off his lungs and he is breathing a lot better but still not normal. She said they're going to do some more chest x-rays this morning, and we will head in to see him. She's hoping we can get his breathing close to normal and he can go home tonight, but if they don't he will more than likely be staying another night. Still no concrete diagnosis, still speculating congestive heart failure but they don't know if it's a congenital or a transient thing because apparently cats are weird so we're keeping our fingers crossed that it's transient. Thank you everyone for being so supportive and helpful and thank you CSU for having an animal cardiologist!!!

4/25: For those of you that know Chris and I, we would never ask for money unless it was our absolute last resort. I'm going to share some extremely personal information that only a handful of people in my life know, but I think it's important to share for you to understand why my cat Goliath means so much to Chris and I. Goliath has been coughing the past couple of days, and we took him to Hound and Katt veterinary clinic (Casper, WY) today at 1:30 PM. After chest x-rays, it was apparent he needed to go to a specialist immediately. His heart is enlarged and his lungs are full of fluid. So we rushed him to CSU emergency vet clinic in Fort Collins, CO. They're running a ton of tests and keeping him overnight but they're speculating that he has congestive heart failure. He is stable but the bills are staggering, not to mention the hotel cost while we are staying here.

Now for the personal part (Kelsey). When I was 21, I went to a nurse practitioner to have a small cyst removed from *my lady parts* long story short, she was not qualified to be doing what she was doing, and she nicked an artery. I went to the ER that night and was taken into emergency surgery with a softball sized hematoma on my genitals. I spent three days in the hospital and had two layers of stitches, not to mention permanent nerve damage. Weeks later, my wound abscessed and I was back in the ER having it drained. Shortly after that, the OBGYN who "saved my life" sexually assaulted me during a follow-up visit. A group of brave women banded together and took him to court for this reason and he was convicted. He appealed and was released due to ineffective council. Until I went to inpatient mental health treatment in 2023, I refused to believe that I had been SA'd. During my painful recovery from my maimed lady parts/SA- I rescued a feral kitten who was starving to death. That kitten was Goliath. The universe knew we needed each other in that moment. He helped me tremendously in my recovery and I would be absolutely devastated if I lost him. He is my soul cat and he doesn't leave my side. He is now 11, and I'm prepared to do whatever is necessary to make him well again. Chris and I scrounged and paid the bill for Hound and Katt and the deposit for CSU but anything that you're able to donate would be greatly appreciated to replenish our meager savings.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

I understand times are tough! If you aren't able to donate we would appreciate a share just as much!