Hi everyone, I know times and money are tough right now, but if anyone can spare a few dollars/pounds/whatever currency, please help me save my cat? She's survived longer than anyone expected after being diagnosed with an incredibly rare condition, a chylothorax, where fluid is leaking into her chest from her lymphatic system. The vet has already removed 100ml of fluid from her in a one-off drainage, but she would need repeated drains for the rest of her life to prevent respiratory failure.

There is a surgery that can fix this, but my vet care plan does not provide any financial support for the between £8000 and £9000 cost, and with the diagnosis I have no options for finding a new plan that would cover it as it is now "pre-existing".

I previously worked at a clinic where during spays and neuters they didn't wear them at any point on the process. Is that standard? The vets I shadowed before always wore them so I found it odd

Sueanoi here.

The standard practice of surgeries require wearing a mask to prevent your saliva/snot to fall in the wound when you breathe/talk.

Do any less, it's sub-standard.

Is sub-standard acceptable? I don't know. What do you think?

Long answer and personal thoughts under the cut.

Hi everyone. I want to take a minute to tell you about my best friend.

Her name is Fidget, and she's a 5.5 year old lab mix that I have had since she was about 2-3 months old, and she's been with me through some of the most difficult times of my adult life. She is the self-appointed mom and bath-giver to our cats and other dog, and has never met a person that she doesn't immediately want to rush up and meet with tail wags, kisses, and snuggles, and her personality, flare for drama, and insistence on being covered with a blanket at all times leaves an impression on everyone who meets her.

Simply put, she deserves the world. I haven't been able to spoil her with the world, but I have certainly been able to spoil her with love. Unfortunately, love isn't going to be enough to help her at this time.

A couple months ago, I found a lump on Fidget, and decided to keep an eye on it. Once I realized it was getting larger and I began to feel a couple more lumps in the area, I got her into the vet to get them looked at. The vet isn't sure what the lumps are yet, but he wants to do surgery to remove the lumps and also perform a biopsy on them.

Between the surgery and the biopsy, the bill is going to be somewhere near $700, and that's just not something that I'm able to budget for at this time. While the surgery date falls on a pay week, that would still use a little more than half of my paycheck, and will make the following two weeks incredibly tight financially.

I know the holidays just ended, and money is tight for everyone right now, but any little bit would be highly appreciated. I just want to get my best friend the care that she needs and deserves.

Thank you all for the help.

23.1.22

Currently in Goa, India for a 2 week veterinary surgical training course in animal birth control, with WVS. Practicing my sutures,ligatures and modified miller’s before my first surgery 🩺🥼tomorrow. The weather is quite chilly unlike the humid beach 🌊 state that it is.

Travelled (in our free time) to :

Baga beach 🏝️

In 2017 an adult tomato frog [Dyscophus guineti] was brought to veterinarian Marco Di Giuseppe after swallowing a huge copper coin. The frog made a full recovery after the coin was extracted, but the process was very invasive and required the creative use of some human medical equipment. The veterinarian detailed the entire diagnostic and extraction process in a paper which can be read here. 

While this content is more gross than what I usually share, I ultimately decided to upload it because 1. It’s very interesting, and 2. It demonstrates the importance of building a frog-safe enclosure absent of small, swallow-able objects. You should never assume your frog won’t swallow an object whole and you should never assume they’ll be smart enough to spit it out before swallowing- or in the case of this frog, physically capable of doing so.