Felicity has gotten her surgery!! Thank you, all!
Donation protected
Hello! My name is Maeve, and I am organizing this GoFundMe on behalf of my mother, Eileen, and her recently adopted elderly cat, Felicity. Thank you for being here.
Meet Felicity (aka Feli): the cuddliest, friendliest, sweetest cat you've ever seen. She is in dire need of medical attention due to her previous owner's neglect.
Felicity came to my mom a little over a month ago from a neglectful home. This is her story.
Felicity's Story
Several months back, a friend of my mom's contacted her asking if she would be willing to take in this friend's neighbor's cat, an elderly Calico/Tabby mix named Felicity. Her friend reported that Felicity's owner had been out of the country for over a year, and had left Felicity behind. The owner was paying a service to come by every couple of days to feed and water Feli, and to change her litter, but that was about all. When the service noticed that Feli was no longer eating, they brought her to the vet. The vet told them that Felicity was depressed. Well, no wonder this sweet kitty was depressed – she’s a very social cat who adores people and craves affection. Yet she had been living alone, aside from a couple of short visits a week, for over a year!
My mother agreed to take her in. She was the only person her friend had reached out to who could - everyone else either already had pets, or had a family member who was allergic - and when she did, what a difference we saw in this little lady! Feli's larger-than-life personality started to show almost immediately: now that she had a person (and sometimes more than one person!) to show her love and affection, she seemed eager to show my mom just how wonderful of a kitty she was. My mom fell in love with her adorable quirks: her scratchy little smoker's meow, the way her purring vibrates her whole little body like she's running on a steam engine, her immediate adoption of the loveseat in the dining room as her throne. She started involving my mom in her bath time, licking my mom's hand and then rubbing her head up against it like it was a washcloth. When I met Feli about a week after she arrived, she decided that I, too, was worthy of being a human washcloth, and she snuggled up to me for pets as soon as I sat down. She is a wonderful, personable, loving creature. I cannot imagine how her owner was able to live with themselves for leaving her for so long.
After Felicity moved in, my mom found out more about the conditions she was living in. Because no one lived there, it would become hot and stuffy, or cold, depending on the weather. The fridge had lost power, the place was becoming grimy. By the time Feli was taken to the vet, she was barely moving around anymore. This is the first indication we had of her medical problems, and here we move to the crux of why I am making this GoFundMe.
Why Felicity Needs Your Help
Feli is an old cat; we are unsure just how old she is, but she is clearly in her sunset years. She has arthritis in her joints, which was aggravated by the time she spent alone, depressed, and unmoving. She cannot sit back properly on her haunches, and she has a hard time jumping up onto her favorite loveseat.
In addition to Felicity's arthritis, she also has severe dental issues. She cannot currently eat anything harder than the softest wet food my mom can find because it causes her obvious pain. When my mom brought her to the vet, they told her that Feli is suffering from Feline Tooth Resorption. According to VCA Animal Hospitals, tooth resorption is "a process by which the dentin (a hard tissue that lies beneath the enamel of the tooth) in a tooth (or teeth) erodes and eventually becomes irreparably destroyed." [x] he way it was described to my mom, this essentially means that Felicity's gums are beginning to reabsorb the teeth because they are too far gone (due to her previous owner's neglect) to maintain. The only treatment for this painful condition is surgery, which in Felicity's case means the tooth needs to be extracted down to the root. As Feli's case is very severe, she will need to have at least 7 or 8 teeth removed. An estimate my mother obtained from the vet’s office is that each extraction will cost up to $1,000. And that doesn’t count the surgical fees, the necessary x-rays, or any medications Felicity will need after surgery.
This surgery must happen, or Felicity will likely have to be put to sleep. Her condition is too severe to humanely allow her to continue living this way.
My mom is doing everything she can to get Felicity the care she needs. Where it becomes difficult is that this surgery is going to be extremely expensive, likely costing thousands of dollars. My mom is the most hard-working person I know - she is my hero, raising me as a single mother through the death of my father and her own life-threatening illness, all on a freelance journalist's salary. She is 66, and is saving for retirement in earnest, but this surgery for Feli may put her back from her retirement goal. She deserves to retire, and she deserves to live in the comfort she has been planning for over my entire life.
My mom would not dream of letting Felicity continue this way, and she is very reluctant to consider putting her down if there is something she can do to give Felicity a comfortable remainder of her life, no matter how long or short it may be. My mom has told me Felicity will be getting this surgery, no matter what. In my opinion (and hopefully yours as well), this is the most loving and responsible attitude any pet owner can have. I just feel that it is extremely unfair that this enormous expense has landed in my mom's lap. Had Feli's previous owner taken better care of her, my mom would not be staring down the barrel of a costly, necessary, life-saving surgery to keep this wonderful cat - who she took in because she is kind, responsible, and caring - alive.
The Bottom Line
Please help us give Felicity what she deserves - to live the rest of her life pain-free, in comfort, and in a loving home - and to give my mother what she deserves - a chance to recoup some of the losses she is facing due to Felicity’s many health issues.
Thank you so much for your help, attention, and compassion.
Organizer and beneficiary
Maeve McCluskey
Organizer
Watertown, MA
Eileen McCluskey
Beneficiary