BUFORD NEEDS YOU

Poor, poor kitty. The namesake of our band, Buford, has been very, very ill this past week. He had to go in for emergency kitty surgery and now there's a bill of many thousands of dollars for Amy to pay. A "Buford Surgery Fund" has been set up for him. I'm going to copy Amy's journal entry today below. If you have a few dollars to spare, please be a loving person and donate to a good cause.

FROM: WATCH WHAT HAPPENS
30 April, 2004
Buford update and plea for help

Well, here's how its gone down:

Buford, kitty extraordinaire and namesake of the band, starts acting lethargic last Tuesday night. He stops eating.

Wednesday, I take him to vet and he has high fever. Bloodwork is done and he is IV hydrated. Bloodwork comes out normal. He is given aspirin and I'm sent home with antibiotics. They call it FUO (Fever of Unexplained Origin).

Thursday, the temp is still up. More hydration in the next few days. Steroid given to stimulate appetite. Still not eating. We're now looking at possible cancer or heart failure.

In the next few days, x-rays are taken. It seems that his liver, lungs and heart are all above his diaphragm and being compressed. An ultrasound is ordered. He is taken to another facility for this.

Ultrasound shows a diaphragmatic hernia. Either he's been involved in some sort of trauma that has lodged his liver and some fat above his diaphragm (where they're not supposed to be), or this is a congenital problem.

By the next Wednesday (two days ago), I'm at a surgeon's office about an hour away from here. Man, this place is nice. Surgeon looks very young - yikes. Surgeon confirms diagnosis of diaphragmatic hernia. Not sure why its become an issue NOW if he's always lived with it, but this does sometimes happen. Suggests surgery. Oddly, he starts eating again this day.

Yesterday, he has the surgery. Liver and fat are moved below the diaphragm. One of the lobes of the lives has a tumor on it, which is removed completely, along with that lobe. It may be cancerous, or it may not. Waiting for the labs to come back. His heart looks good - it is not failing. If the tumor is cancerous, it may come back and it may not. If it is, and it did, that would HORRIBLE for him to go through all this only to lose his life to cancer. Hoping that's not the case. He's doing well, walking around in his cage I'm told, and I'm waiting for the final call back.



So...the ultimate bill (including my own vet's charges) will be approximately $2500-2900. This is not an amount I have sitting around as a non-solvent musician. This is the source of unending embarrassment and self-flagellation to me. I wish I could just do this on my own, and I've started to pay it already. But I need to pay the balance when I pick him (most likely today) - they are not lenient on these things. So I'm making a pitch for donations to his cause. I hate to do this, but I'm doing it anyways.

If you'd like to donate, click the button below. I believe you can just use any credit card, or if you have a paypal account, you can use that. Paypal is what we use for our online CD orders and its ebay's method of payment, so this is not a sketchy or unsafe method of payment. I am very careful about these things, so trust me on that.

If you want to help out, my undying thanks in advance. I've already been amazed and touched at how many people have helped him out, thought about him, prayed about him, drew pictures of him, put out photos of him, cried about him, etc. That means more to me than I can ever say. All over a little orange kitty.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

- posted by Taunia @ 2:50 PM