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Please help save our lovely chubby ginger nugget!

  • Even happier news!

      10 October 2016
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    Hello Daniel's wonderful team!

    What a weekend it has been at Daniel HQ. On Saturday morning we were up and off to visit Daniel in the hospital (via Animates because he's the fussiest wee prince who was flatly refusing to eat the vet's fancy food, and via Toyco to buy him a little Buzz Lightyear soft toy). Daniel had been stable overnight and we were expecting to have our lovely, loving boy back but instead we found the sickest, saddest wee kitten that we'd seen all week. He didn't even seem to know it was us, had very little interest in attention or affection, and barely moved. I left feeling a wee bit heartbroken and feeling as though despite a successful surgery, he wasn't going to make it.

    On Sunday we headed out to visit him again, feeling a little less excited and optimistic than we had the day before. When we arrived, the nurse said "I'm glad you've come to visit, he's been really sad," and my heart dropped, thinking it was going to be yesterday all over again. Then we got to his new cage, and our Daniel was there! Our real, proper, snuggly, head-butting, loves-his-mamas, attention-seeking, purry bestest boy was back. He was up and about and curious and lovely and naughty and I climbed right into his cage and snuggled the living heck out of him. He was so happy to see us and we were so happy to see the real him, I could have just stayed in that cage with him for the rest of the day. Eventually we tore ourselves away because he was obviously exhausted but fighting really hard to stay awake for us, and we know from my accident that "rest is best!". We left in a thousand times better spirits and had the best sleep last night that we've had for a week.

    At 11:30 this morning we got the call - Daniel is coming home today! Exactly a week after we first took him to the vet, he's coming home. He's peeing on his own, which is amazing - he's not particularly good at controlling it yet with his much shorter urethra, so it's going to be does-it-smell-funny-in-here-to-you central around our place for a bit but we'll take that over not peeing any day. He's eating and drinking like a wee champion and is ready to keep recovering back in his own bed.

    We won't have Daniel home until our excellent friends at Givealittle go home for the day so there won't be an update on here until tomorrow, but I'll be documenting his return home this afternoon on my snapchat story - username aaaamyyyy (four a, one m, four y) if you want to watch it all unfold! I'll also do a FB update on Amy Wilson-Hughes with pictures that I'll make public so that people can see and share it. I want you all to be able to share in this glorious and miraculous homecoming with us - there would be no Daniel Fluffernutter any longer if it wasn't for each and every single one of you, and neither of us have the words to express what that means to us.

    You did it! You saved our boy! I'll be back in the morning with what might be a final update, although a few people have suggested we make him a Facebook page so you can all keep track of him long-term - what do you think?

    <3 <3 <3

    A&F

      2 comments  |  Login to leave a comment

    • 10/10/2016 by Rachel

      So happy to hear Daniel is going home :) You should totally give your little snuggle monster his own FB page!

    • 10/10/2016 by Sarah

      That's such great news! All the best for a full recovery. A facebook page for him is a great idea : )

  • Happiest news

      7 October 2016

    Just a quick update to tell you that Daniel is out of surgery, successfully re-plumbed, and alive! Our brave wee trooper! We're not allowed to visit until tomorrow morning, and there are still some pretty significant risks, but we're well and truly on the home stretch now. Our beloved chubby ginger nugget might actually be coming home with his mommas (where he's now allowed to sleep on the bed, because Frith tearfully agreed on Wednesday that if by some miracle he came home alive that he could start sleeping on the bed with us, and you all made that miracle happen!)

    You saved our kitten's life! There are no words for what that means to us. Our tiny family cannot thank you enough.

      1 comment  |  Login to leave a comment

    • 07/10/2016 by Rachel

      What wonderful news!! Made my day to hear the surgery went well :)

  • Today's the day!

      7 October 2016
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    Good morning, team Daniel!

    It has been brought to my attention that some of these updates are getting emailed out hours and hours after they are written, so I'm sorry if it's already Saturday morning when you're reading this.

    Daniel had another great night last night, and is in the best shape we could hope for before surgery today! Initially we thought he'd be going in to have his operation about now, but another poor wee button has come in needing an emergency surgery so because Daniel's stable he might have to wait an extra couple of hours while they help this other little petal out first. That's more than okay with us - we're feeling very lucky to have a relatively stable kitten that's able to wait after such a touch-and-go week.

    It's going to be a long, nervous day/week for us - I've already dripped coffee all down my front, dropped my phone twice, and walked straight into a door frame (although, to be fair, that's not too much worse than a normal Friday for me). Daniel's chances of surviving the surgery still aren't spectacularly high and the odds of complications during recovery aren't as low as we'd like, but the fact that we're even at this point is all thanks to you and we still haven't stopped staring at each other in awed gratitude.

    I have attached a picture of Daniel being a very present, hands-on nurse when I was ill - I so hope we get to bring him home and do the same for him.

    I hope you know what a gift you have given us. Hope is such a powerful thing.

    A&F.

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  • Surgery tomorrow!

      6 October 2016
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    I've just been to visit our sweet wee boy and the news is all as good as it can be! I had a long chat with his lovely surgeon - his electrolytes have come back to normal and it doesn't look like his kidneys are too badly damaged, so it's all on for surgery tomorrow morning. He doesn't look fantastic but he's in much better spirits than he was yesterday. I even got him to eat something for the first time since Monday! They tried to take his cone of shame off so I could get some proper smooches but he was much more interested in trying to pull his catheter out than smooching his adoring mama (or paying any attention to his other adoring mama, who was with us via Skype) (yes, we love this cat too much) so it had to go back on.

    While I was at the vet the Stuff article came out, which was lovely timing because it meant I could show his nurses and his surgeon how loved this darling wee ginger loaf is. They were amazed - he's their first crowdsourced cat surgery and they feel very honoured to be operating on such a famous fella.

    36 hours ago this boy was moments from death and now, thanks to you, he's going in for life-saving surgery tomorrow morning. We are endlessly, endlessly grateful to the love and care you have shown our little family. I'll update again the minute we have any news. <3

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  • No news is good news!

      6 October 2016
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    Good morning, our beloved Daniel-saving team.

    Just a quick update to let you know that our wee ginger loaf (if you're wondering why we call him this, please see attached image) made it through the night. He has a high temperature so they think there's an infection brewing, but they've started him on some antibiotics so hopefully they can stay on top of it. We both have to work today, but I'm going to visit him this afternoon so I'll get to read him all your lovely comments and give you a proper update of how he's doing then (and take a sneaky little picture if he's not too embarrassed!). Surgery will be tomorrow if he makes it through tonight - we just need to get all the built-up electrolytes and other pee-in-your-abdomen-related-unpleasantness out of his system and see if his poor wee kidneys were damaged permanently. Keep him in your thoughts - it's still a long, hard road just to make it to Friday.

    Did a bit of press (!!) this morning - your incredible generosity to our brave wee boy might make the news. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

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  • Oh, our hearts!

      5 October 2016

    After some very scary phone calls in the middle of the night, when we got the call to come urgently in to the cat hospital early this morning we were both sure we wouldn't ever be bringing Daniel home. Sure enough, the news was all bad, and getting him well seemed out of our reach. The surgeon agreed to do one small procedure at a time, and call us in between each to update us on our bill and ask if we wanted to proceed. We were just waiting for the call to come where we'd have to say "that's all we can do, it's time to put him down."

    When we last updated, that call had just come. We got the news that the only thing that could save our sweet boy was an $8,000 operation. We'd just started this page, and people had already been more generous than we expected, so we asked the vet if we could call him back and let him know. He told us that if Daniel wasn't going to be able to have the surgery, we'd have to put him down by the end of the day.

    A couple of hours ago we called the vet and told them that thanks to almost 100 beautiful, wonderful, generous human beings, we're going to be able to give Daniel the surgery he needs. The vet was surprised - I think he'd heard the heartbreak in our voices on the earlier call and didn't think we were going to be able to save him. They're now working really, really hard to get Daniel stable enough for his surgery on Friday, to give him his best chance of surviving. The vet has told us that if he makes it through his surgery, he'll be back to completely normal and have an average life expectancy. This is so far from where we thought we'd be this morning that we can barely believe it.

    Financially we could still use all of the help we can get - if we'd known this was happening in advance we might have made some different choices while booking our New York trip, but there's nothing we can do about that now (except enjoy the shit out of it while we're over there because as Daniel has kindly demonstrated, life is short!). But even if we don't raise another cent, this afternoon has been the difference between life and death for our little best pal (well, as far as money can dictate!) and we are truly, speechlessly, inexpressibly grateful for all of your generosity. It's still 50/50 as to whether Daniel will make it, but now we can fall asleep knowing we've given him the best possible chance to be our goodest wee boy a while longer.

    Go hug something or someone or somepet precious to you, and do something nice for yourself this evening - you might have saved a life today.

    With love and gratitude,

    Amy and Frith and most especially Daniel.

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  • A phone call from the vet

      5 October 2016

    You've all been so incredibly generous already - thank you so much.

    We just had a phone call from the vet and unfortunately the worst-case scenario has arisen and the only way to save Daniel's life is a serious surgery completely altering his internal plumbing. That costs $8,000 on top of everything we've spent so far. We are devastated - we just can't afford that. We've asked for a little time to see how much we can pull together - thank you, thank you, thank you for donating, sharing, and sending your love.

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