Poor Patience, a super-sweet Maine Coon girl, was close to death when she arrived at Strawberry. Only 4 years old, she’d been used for breeding and was in an absolutely terrible state. She was in great pain from her mouth full of severely rotted teeth, entropian (eyelashes turning inwards, scratching her eyeballs every single time she blinked), and most shocking of all, advanced pyrometria (infection of the womb). The breeder mistook her swollen abdomen for yet another pregnancy – when in fact, it was due to her pus-filled womb, untreated for 50 days and now causing sepsis.

Strawberry arranged for Patience to have emergency surgery to remove her septic womb. It was touch and go for several days, but thankfully she managed to pull through. Despite the pain, and the way she had been so sorely neglected by humans in the past, once she was back at the fosterer’s, Patience rolled over for tummy strokes (of her newly-scarred tummy), chirruped happily at her fosterer, and played with her water (like a typical Maine Coon)!

As she built up strength and healed from her emergency surgery, it was time for her next operation – to treat her entropian so that she could finally open her eyes and see properly without the excruciating pain of eyelashes scraping and re-scraping her sensitive eyeballs. She continued to be a playful, extremely affectionate cat, and it was a joy to see her recover and at last be able to open her eyes and see the world without agony.

Patience was still clearly in pain as she tried to eat biscuits, due to her very sore, inflamed gums and badly decayed teeth. Strawberry arranged for her to have a dental and she had several teeth extracted and the rest cleaned. At long last, this poor creature was free from pain.

Strawberry funded all of this veterinary work – the emergency pyrometria operation, entropian operation, dental work, all of the aftercare, medications, and of course, her food, litter, toys, vaccinations, flea and worming treatments, and transport to the fosterer and vet. Patience was at Strawberry for 8 months! Her adoption fee came nowhere near to covering the cost of all of this, and so if you are able to make a donation towards her care, please, please use this link or the one above to go to our Go Fund Me pages, or PayPal (see link at top right of the website page), or contact the vets directly (during working hours) on 01684 573333 and explain that you would like to make a payment towards the Strawberry Pedigree Rescue bill. We are almost out of funds, and donations will help keep us going so we can continue to help cats like Patience in the future. Sickeningly, there will always be more – but will Strawberry still be around to help them? It’s up to you…

Patience touched many hearts and we received lots of applications from people who wanted to adopt her. She was matched with a wonderful adopter and is now thriving pain-free as a dearly loved (and super-loving) pet.