It's 12:20am PST Wednesday now, and I finally have a quiet moment to write this. We brought Boots home from the vet around 5:30pm yesterday evening, and I hardly know how to begin. She had her dental surgery, and she came through it. 💜
For anyone just meeting her: a little over a month ago, my partner and I found a starving senior cat living outside in our Lane County neighborhood. Skin and bones, drooling, and in so much pain she would cry out and back away from her own food. Her owner had fallen on hard times and surrendered her to us.
We got her to a vet within 48 hours, nursed her back from severe malnutrition and anemia in foster care over the last few weeks, and rallied this incredible community to get her to today. Her name is Boots, originally Peppa, born in 2016, a senior girl who had gone roughly eight years without dental care.
What they found:
I need you to understand what this girl was living with. The surgeon described the inside of her mouth as looking like hamburger meat. The gum and tissue around her teeth was destroyed, tooth roots were exposed, and she was, in the doctor's words, likely enduring about the highest level of oral pain a cat can experience. For months. Silently. Still purring on our laps the whole time.
They extracted 19 teeth. The disease was so advanced that the tissue was too compromised to even hold sutures, so the sites are healing on their own.
And here's the miracle part: just hours after that enormous surgery, Boots was already eating, looking bright, and, exactly as we hoped, barely drooling. Since we got her home at 5:30, she's been steadily resting and recovering.
The foul smell that came from her infected mouth has already dissipated, she was cleaned up beautifully at the clinic, and she's comfortable on soft bedding.
The source of her suffering is finally gone, and she is already showing us the difference. Cats are astonishing.
On the cost, and the kindness that floored me:
The total came to around $3,450, at the higher end, because her disease was even worse than anyone estimated. And I have to tell you about something that brought me to tears: one extraordinarily generous donor gave roughly $2,100 of her own money toward Boots's care.
I don't have words big enough. To that person, and to every single one of you who gave $5 or $50 or $200, shared her story, called the clinic, or just cheered her on, you did this.
Boots is out of pain tonight because a whole community of strangers decided one neglected old cat was worth saving. Thank you. From the very bottom of my heart. 🙏💜
What's next, and how you can still help:
Boots's surgery is covered, and she's on the road to recovery. But her journey isn't quite over. She'll need:
🐾 Ongoing care as she heals (soft food, comfort, monitoring)
🐾 Follow-up vet visits, including recheck bloodwork to confirm her recovery
🐾 The everyday supplies of a healing senior cat
If you'd like to continue supporting her, it is so welcome but never expected. You can help by:
🐾 Donating food or supplies (or funds toward food and ongoing care)
🐾 Contributing toward her follow-up visits and recheck bloodwork
🐾 Or simply sharing her success story, which costs nothing and means the world
Venmo: https://www.venmo.com/u/Jehoseph
PayPal: https://paypal.me/TheDivines
Or reach out to me directly and we'll find whatever works for you.
Where she is right now: home, on soft bedding, mouth finally free of nineteen rotten teeth, cleaned up and fresh-smelling, resting peacefully, and, for the first time in who knows how long, not in pain.
She went from dying in a garden to this in a month. She did the hard part. You carried her the rest of the way.
Thank you, truly, all of you.
This is what a community can do. 🐾💜
Recovery updates to come. She's got a lot of comfortable, well-fed days ahead of her now.
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