Hello everyone,
You don't know me or my ESA Prudence but we need your help. I adopted Pru at the height of my depression in 2020 to help with my anxiety and OCD. She was the only cat in the shelter that walked up to me and immediately started purring and loving on me. She quickly became my best friend and single most important person to me.
I did not have family when I adopted her and she quickly became that for me. She has moved with me three times including across the state to start my life over by pursing an undergraduate degree. She has saved my life several times over and now it is time for me to save hers and I can't do it on my own and im devastated.
Last summer in 2025 my place of employment shut down which left me unemployed and at the same time I became functionally disabled. My college is in a small town that has few jobs outside of food service or manual labor which are now inaccessible to me because I cannot stand and work for more than an hour at most. This has been devastating and I now have to rely on my partner, low hours during the school term doing administrative work study, and school loans to survive.
Prudence developed hyperthyroid over the last year that we are effectively treating with medication. However, new and worrying symptoms have appeared: She will not eat consistently and is not losing the weight she had gained back since starting her medication. She absolutely refuses to eat more than a few pieces of dry food and at most a 3oz can of food per day. She has recently escalated to only eating the gravy off of her food and vomiting 50% of the time. It is taking everything in my to keep her hydrated. The vet bill is only $600 to get a urinialysis and a stomach scan (either a CT or ultrasound but it escapes me which one) to try and find the issue. I cannot afford this.
During the school term I work enough to support the both of us but it is summer and I have only enough income from gig and contract work to pay my rent. My partner shares most of the responsibility for finances but they are one person. I cannot make money fast enough to pay the vet bills as they are coming up and my income is too little to qualify for financial assistance such as Care Credit.
I need help, I need community, and I need my best friend. Please, if you can donate I would be eternally greatful.
Thank you,
Catshark.
