Hello friends, family, and strangers. Yes this is a longer post, and we apologise in advance. Thank you for reading all of this. It’s not often that we ask for help, but we are coming to you in this time of grief. Katherine and Chris recently had to make the hard decision to put their cat Bruce down due to complications with Feline Leukemia (FeLV). The battle they fought with the first vet to properly advocate and get urgent care for him was rough.

Bruce, their sweet and lovable boy was diagnosed with FeLV about 4 years ago, something that is known to have a short prognosis (it’s a constant roller coaster of sickness; any bout could be the final one.) Bruce's strong will, luck, tribe, and amount of love he received on a daily basis were the pillars that everyone believes allowed him to live as long as he did after his diagnosis. There were no signs for years that the disease was affecting him. He never got sick. Kat and Chris were diligent with vet visits for both Bruce and his siblings, and monitored his overall condition (watching for any shifts.) There was nothing to signal the disease had kicked into gear to spark the extremely rapid decline at the vet clinic.

Kat and Chris took all the necessary precautions to care for and aid Bruce in his battle, especially during his last days. As soon as Bruce showed signs of something being wrong (disinterest in food and sleeping more through the day - he was a FOODIE and active at certain times of the day), they took him to their local clinic. They assumed he might have had something as small as a stomach bug. Unfortunately, Bruce spent a week at this clinic. During his stay, Bruce's condition continued to decline. He still refused to eat, requiring the staff to hand-feed/force feed him a high-calorie slurry. Early blood work revealed that his underlying FeLV had aggressively woken up (not of concern or of focus to the clinic), sending his liver into a massive crisis. Kat and Chris wanted to explore an internal blockage or other possibility, yet were told that ultrasounds to confirm anything or find some other explanation were “not a standard procedure” and would just continue to monitor without any other answers or explanations. Kat and Chris fiercely advocated for Bruce in ways they should never have had to, and demanded the imaging or they would pull him for a second opinion.

After having to threaten to pull Bruce, imaging was finally done. It revealed a massive fluid buildup (pleural effusion) filling his chest cavity and compressing his lungs. The clinic successfully drained fluid samples to help him breathe, but the team working on Bruce provided highly conflicting and confusing communication regarding his treatment, specifically around heart medications and steroids they started him on to help with the fever he had and appetite he had lost. The clinic proposed sending the drained chest fluid out to an outside lab to test for cancer, however this test would cost quite a lot, and take months to get results, time that Bruce just didn’t have. FeLV has no cure, and this situation left them with no immediate answers on how to manage his treatment or help him get better. By the end of the week Bruce was still there. It became painfully clear to them that Bruce wasn’t going to get any better in that clinic's care, that they wouldn’t be getting any sort of answers past this point. Bruce was well enough that he could come home with medicine for everything they were already treating him for, so they decided to do that and take him to a different clinic for another opinion.

To bring him home for the weekend so they could seek a trusted opinion, Kat and Chris paid an immediate $1,900, something they were more than willing to do to try one last time for Bruce. Bruce was able to spend at least one last weekend with Kat, Chris and his tribe of siblings. On Monday, seeking answers they could truly trust, they made the hour-long drive to their long-time trusted veterinary clinic. They had stopped taking their cats to this clinic only because the long drive caused the cats crazy anxiety, but they knew this clinic would give them some answers. They had helped with one of Bruce’s past siblings (Penny) who also had FeLV and had passed away from it.

Kat had Emily, her best friend, meet at the clinic for support to give her the chance to say goodbye to their sweet boy in case that was what came from the visit. The clinic immediately listened to all of Kat’s worries and performed immediate testing which is when she found out the painful reality of Bruce's condition. They discovered a mass in his chest (not just fluid), severe sludge in his gallbladder, that he had Hepatic Lipidosis, and critically low red and white blood cell counts, along with the fact that his FeLV had surfaced all at the same time. Bruce would have required an immediate blood transfusion just to survive transport to a specialist in Kansas, a journey far too long and punishing for Bruce to realistically endure in his weak state. There was no guarantee that the specialist would be able to help him either. The vet taking care of Kat and Bruce stayed realistic with her when explaining the situation. They told Kat that the best case scenario in this situation was that he managed to push through the drive home, but that he more than likely wouldn’t make it through the night.

Kat and Chris made the impossibly hard decision to do what was right for Bruce and stop his suffering before it got worse than it already was. Kat and Emily took Bruce to Kat’s mothers house (after permission and reassurance it would be okay by the vet) while waiting for Chris to be able to make it to them. They let Bruce spend some of his last moments basking in the sun on the warm grass outside, before going back to the vet to let him go as peacefully as they could possibly make it for him. He didn’t fight, and stayed cuddled in Kat and Chris’s arms until the end.

Kat and Chris did absolutely everything possible to fight for Bruce, and he is now finally resting. To help them clear the emergency veterinary medical bills and cover the $2,750 to finally and fully lay him to rest, please consider supporting them:

• Donate: Any financial contribution directly helps pay off the emergency veterinary bills and final care costs.
• Share: Please share this link with friends, family, and animal lovers to help spread the word.

They’re not asking for pity, or for a miracle. All they are asking for is help getting the word out, and helping them afford to pay off the medical bills they accumulated during their fight for Bruce. Anything helps. Donations, sharing this message and fundraiser, spreading the word. More needs to be done in terms of understanding this disease, and no one should have to fight to advocate for their sick pet the way Kat and Chris had to for Bruce. For his siblings Penny and Chicken. Thank you to all who took time out of their day to read this, to donate or share, and send love to people who did the absolute most they could for their baby.