Hi, my name is Ashley Holt & I'm Harrison's owner, "cat mom", live-in maid, and carer. Harrison, for those who don't know him, is our baby and constant companion--traveling with us from Alexandria Virginia (where we adopted him), to Sicily, to Pensacola, Florida, to Baton Rouge, Lousiana, and now to Wiesbaden Germany. He's an absolute trooper to put up with all of these moves, and is everything you could ever want from a orange cat. He's large, opinionated, and wildly fluffy. Unfortunately, shortly after moving to Wiesbaden, my husband Jacob and I noticed a lump on the right side of Harrison's neck. Even more unfortunately, we couldn't find an appointment with a veterinary oncologist for nearly a month--during which time the lump more than doubled in size. We were able to do a CT scan as well as a fine needle aspiration biopsy that day, and learned that it was indeed cancerous; he had a form of soft-tissue sarcoma. The cost of this appointment was 1091.34 euro (see attached photo of 1-page bill). After discussing a variety of options with the oncologist and the vet hospital's team of surgeons, everyone was highly confident that they could remove 100% of the tumor and take healthy enough margins that there shouldn't be any regrowth in that area. We scheduled the surgery for June 28th and were told that the upper end of the costs should be around 2500-3000 euro for the surgery + hospital stay + meds. On the 28th, the surgery went well, however, his heart began to beat erratically and so he needed different medicine and an EKG in order to further investigate the issue. It turned out that this was due to some of the drugs he was on at the time, but it still increased the cost and length of his hospital stay. At the end of this stay, our bill was 4120,72 euro (see attached photos of 3-page bill). This wasn't ideal, but it wasn't a huge problem as we had already taken out a loan to cover his surgery, daily medication, and post-op vet visits. Unfortunately, bad luck struck again, and although he was taking medication 4 times a day (administered by me) and seen by a vet that did a home visit, his wound became infected as some of the skin tissue had begun to die. We took him to the veterinary hospital for an emergency visit last Friday and were told that he needed another surgery (this time an emergency surgery) to trim any dead/dying skin and to flush his wounds. This resulted in another long stay at the hospital--because they had to remove skin from his neck twice, and want the wound to drain, he currently is wearing a neck bandage over an open wound about the size of a quarter. The cost of this operation and stay were 2,653.74 euro (see attached photos of 3-page bill for 1744.41 and 2-page bill for 909.33--they let us split this bill). We were finally able to bring him home yesterday. He's doing fantastic, eating great, demanding attention and enough snacks to make up for essentially 2 weeks in the hospital. However, because of the open wound in his neck, he has to go in for daily bandage changes and doctor's appointments for at least another week or so. We have to wait to see how the wound is healing in order to know for sure. Today's appointment cost us 117.75 euro (see attached photo of 1 page bill). So a rough estimate for another week of this is 824.25 euro (provided that no other services are needed). I hate to ask for help, but we are currently only living on one salary (Jacob's) as I have been trying since October to find either local work in Germany, or remote work with no success. We planned financially for the first surgery and took out a loan to cover it, but following the second we are completely swimming in debt. We have been trying our best to make the best possible choices for Harrison, however, the total amount of vet bills that Harrison has accrued in less than 1 month is so far 8,043.55 euro. I think the total will end up being nearly 10,000 euro, once all is said and done. Furthermore, the veterinary hospital's credit partner does not allow for non-German citizens to set up payment plans, so we've paid this over eight thousand euro bill out of pocket (through the loan and also with help from family). If you know Harrison, are an animal lover, and/or know other animal lovers looking for a good cause it would mean the world to us if you could either donate or share this with others to help cover his continued veterinary costs. Thank you, and lots of love to you all. -Ashley, Jacob, & Harrison
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