Donor gives kitten a second chance
A kitten with a life-threatening birth-defect was saved from the brink of death by an animalloving donor.
The kitten, named Darryl, was born with a tight ring of veins around his oesophagus, near the stomach. The ring allowed milk to pass through into his stomach, but as soon as he graduated to solid food, Darryl’s health began to decline.
Lana Anderson, Darryl’s owner, said when he ate he would start foaming at the mouth and eventually throw up, and he never put on weight. Anderson had been about to try to find Darryl a forever-home, but instead he was taken to the vet.
‘‘He was skin and bones,’’ Anderson said. ‘‘We were feeding him with a syringe, every two hours. He had to come with me to work.’’
Darryl’s prognosis was not good. At Victory Vets Darryl was x-rayed, revealing the blockage in his oesophagus was just above his heart. Anything he ate was trapped in his oesophagus, which then swelled up into his chest cavity.
Without surgery, the only treatment was euthanasia - but the surgery and related treatments would cost $1500.
Hickman said Anderson was reluctant to put the kitten to sleep, but the treatment was ‘‘not fiscally possible’’ for her.
Anderson said there was no way for her to be able to cover the bill, and since Darryl was meant to be given away, it seemed the only option was to euthanise him.
The situation looked bleak for Darryl, but thanks to an anonymous donor, things took a turn for the better.
Hickman said someone who wanted to remain anonymous had donated $1000 to the vet ‘‘into a rainy-day fund’’.
Victory Vets decided that Darryl was the rainy-day case and used the money towards his treatment, covering $600 of costs themselves.
Because the blockage was so near his heart the surgery was quite invasive, but Darryl pulled through.
‘‘We’ve ended up with a case that went really well,’’ Hickman said.
For a while, he still needed to be fed from above, to stop food from collecting in the distended area of the oesophagus.
‘‘We were feeding him from a spoon at knee-height, he had to stand up like a meerkat,’’ Anderson said.
Darryl has just started eating ‘‘like a normal cat’’, and is doing very well. And he found his forever-home after all: with Lana Anderson’s mum.