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BILLY
A busy day full of busy people, and a sick stray cat, who is not busy with anything but dying.
Billy was found at his last moment and taken to a veterinary clinic. Initial examination found him to be emaciated, underweight, weak and uncovered an urgent problem — his kidneys were in dire shape. The most effective therapy for his condition is management of fluid balance, which involves careful assessment of hydration and a personalized fluid treatment plan, which will be repeated every two days. Billy’s fluid and electrolyte balance will be monitored constantly and his treatment will be adjusted accordingly. After a few days under observation the vet team will review his blood and biochemistry parameters again and will determine if his kidney problem is acute or chronic. If it is chronic Billy will have to continue receiving treatment for the rest of his life.
The worst
In most rescue cases there is usually one terrible detail, which shocks even us — and we have seen a lot. You will never believe what that detail was in Billy’s story.
When the vets were examining Billy they discovered something unexpected. Billy’s front leg had been recently shaved and sported a visible hole from an IV catheter!
If you don’t realize the meaning of that — very recently, probably a day or two ago, someone had already taken Billy to a vet, and probably having realized just how complicated and difficult his situation was, had returned him back to the street!
We can only hope the person did not understand how his actions sentenced Billy to either a a painful death from his overloaded organs failing one after the other, or to slowly dying from hunger, or to a sudden excruciating death when he would inevitably stray onto the road and get hit by a car, or any combination of the above.
Billy is with us now and he is already feeling much better. The fluid therapy is gradually helping restore the right balance to his body, he has perked up and is alert now, even seeking attention.
UPDATE | June 1, 2017
Today was a bad day for Billy..
Billy’s white blood cell count shot through the roof today, jumping from an already high 36 000 to over 70 000, sending him into critical territory. We had to urgently find a donor and a blood transfusion was performed, literally saving Billy’s life. Billy’s antibiotic has been changed now and we are hoping to get whatever infection is troubling him, under control.
Keep our sweet boy in your thoughts, and stay with us for an update tomorrow.
UPDATE | July 13, 2017
Billy has now stabilized enough to be discharged from the clinic and we have placed him in a foster home for cats with special needs. Because of his kidney disease Billy will need palliative care with daily fluids therapy for the rest of his life. He is taking his time getting used to being in a much larger space than his cage at the clinic and absolutely loves attention and cuddles.
UPDATE | December, 2017
It’s been a while since we shared an update on kitty Billy and in the meantime he has been in and out of the clinic. Apart from his kidney problems and FIV, Billy is generally not super stable and occasionally requires hospitalization and fluid therapy. He also has a heart murmur.
Because of Billy’s weakness the vets have been using conservative methods to treat a lingering infection in his mouth, which he’s had since we rescued him. However a more invasive approach could no longer be avoided and surgery had to eventually be scheduled for the removal of two broken teeth which may be aggravating the problem.
Billy enjoys life and most of his days are good days. We are hoping that with the bad teeth removed even more of his days will be good ones.
Help us give Billy more good days and continue to provide the medical care he needs.
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help this tough solder
I am not surprised by anything a human being would do to animals. One of the worse things tho, is giving the poor animal hope and then just dumping him again because he didn’t want to pay to at least bring his fluid levels back to the normal range. Once he was stable, a fund raiser could have been set up, but he instead chose to just throw him out again after he gave this poor cat a hope for life. My donation isn’t very large, but it’s all I got.
Hang in there buddy, you’ll be as good as new soon.
Can we please have an update on Billy?