Rocket Estrada's Emergency Surgery

Erica Estrada is organizing this fundraiser.

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Hello, my name is Erica Estrada, and I am reaching out on behalf of our little cat guy, Rocket. He came into our lives when we needed unconditional love the most. My husband and I had just lost my beloved cat of 21 years, Pika, a month before adopting Rocket and we went straight into the pandemic about a month after that. He has been here for us through so much heartache and hard times; we would do anything to help him.

Early in the morning on December 2nd, we were woken up by the sounds of Rocket throwing up a typical hairball…or so we thought. One pile of throw-up turned to two and continued about every hour after that. We thought he was possibly dealt a bad batch of food or swallowed something he shouldn’t have, so we wanted to get him checked out and back home ASAP.

Thankfully, our primary vet squeezed us in that afternoon for a check-up which led to needing x-rays, fluids and blood/urine labs. Several hours later, we learned that Rocket’s white blood cell count was more than double what it should have been, and his intestines were inflamed, but they could not find the cause of his issue. We were told that we should take Rocket to an emergency vet for further care, so our vet made some phone calls and found a facility that would take Rocket in that night. We took him straight there, still hoping for a somewhat less frightening outcome than what we were then faced with.

After additional x-rays, labs, and an ultrasound, we had to decide on Saturday morning that if the vets found something serious, we would be ok with them going through with whatever surgery Rocket needed. We really had to dig deep to gather the funds to give our little guy whatever chance he needed. When the surgeon called us Saturday afternoon, we were horrified to discover they found that Rocket had “Jejunal Intussusception,” where part of his intestine had intertwined into the other. They then had to remove part of his intestines and put them back together. They are not sure if a parasite caused this, and they let us know that it is extremely rare for a cat, let alone a young indoor cat, to encounter it.

In addition, Rocket had a bad reaction to the anesthesia and also developed aspiration pneumonia due to all of the vomiting. He was taken to ICU to be cared for after surgery and put on oxygen until Tuesday afternoon. On Wednesday, he was finally discharged, and we have been ground to dust since. But! We are so very grateful to the wonderful vets, surgeons and staff who helped save our little guy’s life and have been so supportive to us.

We are waiting on Rocket’s biopsy and cytology results to find out exactly what caused this to happen to him. Since we brought him home, we have not had more than a couple of hours of sleep at a time, and we have both been struggling to get anything else done. Rocket is currently on a feeding tube and several medications that require us to care for him all hours of the day and night. We are not sure how long it will take to get him back to good health, but we are willing to do whatever it takes.

As a result of all of this, we are facing over $12,000 in vet bills and beyond. We never thought we would be in a position where we would be asking for help in this way. We hesitated to make this fundraiser because we understand how crazy times have been for everyone these last couple of years, especially now that we are going into the holidays. This has been so unbelievably hard on us emotionally, physically and financially, but no more challenging than it has been on our sweet boy. Rocket means the world to us, and we can not express how incredibly grateful we are for any help we can get.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you for your love and support. <3

Here's just a little bit of why we love him so much...

Rocket's first day home from the shelter!