Donate to Paul's Nakey Leg Fund!

Paul is a beautiful, 15-year-old tortie.

She's named after this episode of Family Guy .

I got her after I graduated from Wellesley, from my mom's nursing school friend—she's since passed away. It's one of the good memories I have of her.

My best friend in college and I had watched the episode after smoking a lot of weed, and I couldn't stop laughing for like... 10 minutes. I decided to get a cat after I graduated, and name it Paul.

Her cat, Meadow, had been creepin in the streets and got knocked up, yielding an adorable litter of kittens. My mom and I watched the litter as they nursed on Meadow, a long black cat with giant green eyes. They were little potatoes, eyes barely open.

One little potato seemed to be smaller than the others. It would back up twice its body length (about 15 inches), and then charge forward on its wobbly little legs, and head-butt the other potatoes.

It was awkward and silly-looking, with glassy blue eyes and a frantic mew.

Its fur was kind of calico, but not really.

It looked like it had not a thought in its head.

We held the potato together, and I just knew. This was my potato. My Paul. (10 minutes of laughter)

A few weeks later, a vet told me Paul was a girl. He asked me if I'd like to put another name in her records. "Nah," I probably responded, delighted by the idea of having a girl cat named Paul.

I'm still delighted by it, years later. I mean, it's a people name.

She's my little soulmate. Seriously. We're meant to be together, and the universe keeps aligning it that way. We've both been through a hell of a lot.

Just after midnight on the 16th, Paul was playing on our 4th floor balcony. While chasing a beetle around that was knocking against the walls, attracted to the lights, she lost her footing and fell through a gap in the railing.

She fell FOUR FLOORS. I heard the scrambling sound and a faint yowl as she went over, then moments later, a thump... and knew immediately what had happened.

We rushed downstairs after calling for her and hearing her respond. She was spooked, limping, and bleeding from her mouth, but we couldn't see any major damage.

CATS ARE TANKS. I cannot believe she survived that fall. I'm just so grateful.

We took her to the emergency vet, where they confirmed that she was okay, and there was no internal bleeding. We kept an eye on her, and in the morning, we took her to her regular vet.

Dr. Loss was very kind and gave her a full work up. X-rays showed she might have a slight fracture in her jaw. She gave her the good pain meds, and an anti-inflammatory.

Days later, she's been resting lots, and is eating soft food. We're bringing her in on Monday for more x-rays to really evaluate her jaw, because it appears to be out of alignment, and clicks when she eats. She also bit her tiny little tongue.

We've never had any issues with her even coming close to falling through before. She was just excited and having fun!

Unfortunately, I don't yet have insurance for Paul, so this is going to be the time to get it. Any recommendations are welcome! In the meantime, I'm putting together a health care fund, so we can keep her taken care of without worrying about funds.

We're raising $3,500 in total, to cover existing costs, medication, and future rehabilitative care for her jaw that the doctor has already told us she'll likely need. We've already spent more than $1,100. Hopefully we can find a plan without a long waiting period.

These are Paul's bills so far:

Anything you can contribute helps! Thank you for your help, from myself, and Paul!

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Still here? Wanna hear another story? Cuz this isn't the first time Paul and I have almost lost each other.

I think she lost a few lives when she was stolen from me back in 2009, by an evil landlady/roommate who had 2 dogs that I loved like my own. How could someone do that?

It was a rough time for me, and I was definitely lacking stability. But as to why she did it... I'll never know. Like I said... evil.

She lured me out to bring her her phone charger at work while her friend picked up Paul from the house and took her across the river to Vancouver, Washington. She was released into the wild around a trailer park in Vancouver where evil landlady's friend's mom lived, and left to her own devices in established territory of feral cat colonies.

Weeks passed, and it finally set in that Paul wasn't coming back. I was the world's worst pet mom, and I didn't deserve her to begin with. My heart was shattered into a million pieces when I put away her litter box and food bowls.

I had one hope, though: I had just had her microchipped a month earlier at the Multnomah County Animal Shelter in Portland, right before she went missing.

I had been unemployed off and on, working shitty temp jobs, and a friend of mine gave me a flyer advertising spay/chip/vaccine for just a $20 donation. That was about all I could afford, and it was the reason we found each other again.

One day, after working a weird warehouse job they didn't accurately describe to me, so I had showed up to work at wearing nice clothes—knowing damn well I wasn't going back the next day—I noticed that I had missed a call.

From Vancouver Animal Hospital.

The voicemail said they thought they had found my cat after scanning her microchip.

A kind woman with 5 cats of her own had seen Paul in her yard, and her daughter thought she was beautiful, so they started feeding her. She probably hung out under her deck, where she knew she could get food without too much conflict.

One day, she came up limping with a bloody paw. The woman took her to the vet, where they treated her paw (at HER cost), and called me after scanning her chip.

What ensued was a joyous reunion, as well as a reimbursement and reward for the woman who reunited us.

You can't break up soulmates. We're too strong. Life hasn't been perfect for us. But that's why we're perfect together. ❤️