The Kitty Brigade
Tico-Tico the kitty passed away in the early morning of December 24th. I’ve removed the links for donation. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who helped out.
Yesterday a dear friend went to Buenos Aires to spend Christmas with his mom for the first time in, idk, ten years maybe. We were pretty happy for him when he told us he had managed to save up to finally visit his mom in Argentina! And of course we offered for him to stay here with us before his red eye flight -- the last buses from his town to the capital don't run after 4pm, so he'd arrive waaay before the check in time.
But of course something had to happen. The day before the trip, one of his cats showed up limping and quickly got worse. We think she was stung/bitten by an animal (there's a chunk of rain forest where he lives), but the end result is that he had to rush with her and his luggage to the capital and have the cat admitted to the vet ICU, within a few hours from his international flight.
We talked it over and set up an action plan: I'm visiting Tico-Tico (that's her name) at the ICU, and the vets there are in touch with my friend via text. If she makes it, I managed to find a foster home for her to stay at until he comes back. We're calling ourselves "The Kitty Brigade". Everyone is doing a little bit to help out.
But then today we got the news: she developed a very severe case of anemia. And then her FeLV test came back positive. For those who don't know, FeLV stands for Feline Leukemia Virus, which explains why her anemia's been so acute.
She needs a blood transfusion as soon as possible to have a real shot at getting better. But the transfusion costs an entire month's salary. Brazil's minimum wage is at 1500 BRL (roughly U$270), and that's exactly how much it costs for Tico-Tico to get the blood she needs. That's a lot of money for a uni student like him. We're helping as much as we can, but that's also a lot of money for any of us. And of course that's not the only cost he's having, with medication, exams, blood tests and the daily hospitalisation fees, which are all already pretty steep.
Tico-Tico is the loveliest little cat to ever cat. She's one and a half years old and her favorite thing in the entire world is chin scritches.
I would never ask for money for myself, but this little girl is dear and near to my heart, and she deserves a real shot. If you can help with any amount whatsoever, I'm leaving a few links below for donation. I urge you to consider that 1 USD is 5 BRL (and 1 EUR is 6.49 BRL!), so your donation, however small, automatically multiplies for us.
If you can't donate, that's completely fine as well! Please don't feel pressured or compromise your personal finances if you're on a tight budget yourself. If you've read this far, I already thank you. I'll be posting updates about Tico-Tico on the blog and on my status.café.
※
This post was last edited 3 months, 2 weeks ago. You can reply via email or leave a message on my guestbook.