I am at the local veterinary hospital with him. I am hoping they can do the surgery and clean his wound here for less than the 24 hour vet quoted me. Thank you to all of his donors! The goal wasn’t met for the worst case scenario, but I am hoping it will be enough. You all are heroes to Blue! The veterinarian just examined him and wants to x-rays. She says it could have been a BB. She wants to do an X-ray to confirm or deny it was. She will also be checking to see if there is an intestate has spread to one of his teeth from the injury. I will be posting more soon! Thank you again to all of you wonderful people on Lemmy!

UPDATE: It is now 8:24PM and I have returned home from the veterinary clinic with Blue. His wounds were cleaned. After x-rays they opted not to do surgery on his face, but brought to my attention some teeth in his lower jaw that will require extraction. I was presented with a new quote for dental work, after paying $715.06 for today’s visit. The new quote claims that the upcoming dental procedure will cost between $1392.10 and $2533.64. After I paid today’s vet bill with funds from the PayPal fundraiser, I was shocked to hear that the dental work will cost so much. I am postponing it for payday since the PayPal fundraiser now has $609.94 left in it. This amount does not display my pledge for $50, because I was waiting to add it to the fund until I had sold some furniture in my online yard sale. All proceeds are going to Blue’s vet bills. I’m going to need to sell a lot more furniture than what I have in storage to cover this. The toughest part is knowing I will drop him off next week at the vet, not know how many teeth they want to pull, and return to find a cat with all of his teeth missing and some huge vet bill that is more than my paycheck can cover, plus the funds. I am putting it off just so that payday will arrive before the procedure. Does anyone know of a place that does cheap extractions in California? This veterinary clinic seems great, but that is a lot of money, and I still had to drive almost 25 miles to reach it. I had to make a trip there to drop him off for X-rays and cleaning. I drove home to sell some furniture to help put towards the fund. I had to drive back to the pet hospital to pick him up, and then back home with him. I drove nearly 100 miles today and paid over $700 to take care of the cat that is actually owned by my dad (or as I call him, the man who raised me). I’m upset. I’m not upset at the veterinary hospital. They did their job. They need to make a living, too. I’m not mad at the cat. It isn’t his fault that he is sick. I’m mad at my dad. He adopted this cat almost four years ago, on his own, from a shelter, without telling anyone, and now refuses to take care of it. He treats me like crap and he always has. I cook, I clean, I do his laundry and my own, and even cook and clean for his sister when she decides to grace us with her presence. Are they grateful? No. They treat me like I’ve done something to deserve being treated like a second class citizen. He isn’t my biological dad. I’ve been over this on Lemmy before now. Every time I achieved anything as a child, he would just snub it, or look down his nose at me for it. Academic achievements, scholarships, being recruited for collegiate softball, graduating college with a bachelor’s degree, graduating college with a master’s degree, other academic certificates, and even getting married and having a family. He never expressed that he was proud of me. At every one of these events, he made fun of me. You know who was home to help him when he threw out his back? I was. Who was here to help him when he had some kind of mini stroke this year? Me. Who is his favorite child? My older sister. The worst part of this whole current experience with the cat is dealing with Lemmy readers that have bullied me over letting the cat live outside. It isn’t my house and it isn’t my cat. I have to take care of dad, and it’s his house. I don’t have a say in letting the cats be inside. Oh, and who will get the house (my childhood home) when he dies? Probably my cousin and his wife because I hear so much about how they “need a home”. I had to sell my home when my husband announced he was leaving me just before summer of 2013. We reconciled and then split again. We sold our home, then reconciled again, and moved to Northern California. We bought another home; an older Victorian home. He lost his job, and I could pay all of the bills on my salary. I had to put our home up for sale, and ended up losing it in foreclosure. There was no money from the sale. I had to ask my parents for help at age 28, just before my 29th birthday. We were drowning in debt, so I tried to leave my job and join the military, hoping things would get better and I could bring my family on base with me. Things didn’t really improve. Instead, my children live with my mother who shunned me immediately for trying to join the army, despite the fact that her father served in the army during WW2. She has my children; constantly citing my debt and lack of medical coverage from my current job field. What does that make me? Dad’s part-time care giver Monday through Friday and Dad’s full-time care giver Saturday and Sunday.

For those who say, I can’t be mad at him now because he’s elderly and feeble. He intentionally left a bunch of aspirin scattered on the desk today for me to clean up when I arrived home today. He is intentionally leaving cupboards open, and messes on the countertops of the kitchen for me to clean, because he thinks it is funny to make someone clean up after him. It isn’t old age. He has always been this way. He used to do this to my mother (woman who raised me). He would brag about how his family had hired people during his childhood to be their maid and to chauffeur them to school. My family is not rich at all. My grandparents really spoiled him. Oh, and to thank them, he chased their maid “down the drive-way with a butcher knife” at around age eight, for fun, as he described. At that age I guess he enjoyed giving my grandparents a mess to clean up, too, huh? Well now it isn’t just a mess, it’s a medical emergency and it involves some poor animal that didn’t ask to be adopted by a neglectful owner. So here is the mess he has made and I’m cleaning it up, just like mom used to do before she left him.

UPDATE: Blue is scheduled for a second opinion on the teeth extraction decision. I am hesitant to have so many of his teeth pulled when he isn’t showing any signs of pain while eating. I also worry he will struggle to eat after having them pulled. For those who missed it, the last veterinary appointment ended with his wounds being cleaned, X-rays, pain medication, and an e-collar for a little over $700. They also tested him for FIV with a snap test. The doctor who read his x-rays wanted to pull some of his teeth, though, citing that some of them looked a little recessed. That procedure is scheduled for next week, but will cost between $1300 and $2500. That doesn’t include this most recent visit. The fundraiser paid for the last visit, but is nowhere near the amount the vet is asking for teeth extraction. I consulted another vet and that vet will meet with me on Saturday to discuss a second opinion. They are also cheaper for extractions; $80 per tooth instead of $100 per tooth, if it is absolutely necessary to do that. Wish us luck! I will post more pictures soon. I have been hesitant to film his appointments because of how the veterinary staff might feel about being on film. If allowed to film the discussion, I will do that next time. Thank you all for helping with his fundraiser and for following him on this journey.