- Joined
- Sep 27, 2018
- Messages
- 19
- Purraise
- 25
Hi, everybody!
I'm José Maria and Atena is my kitten! She is approximately 6 months old. She was abandoned 2 months ago near my aunt's house in Escada, a small city of Pernambuco, a state of Brazil. People came to my aunt's asking if she could keep her, and she denied it because she has a not-so-cat-friendly dog. However, what we didn't expect was that the people who brought her gave up trying to find her a new home and left her alone in front of the house. It was such a cold night and she came to me and my parents as we were leaving the house and we fell in love. We brought her that night and the next day we bought everything a cat would need.
We soon noticed she had a problem when she breath due to how fast she did that and how strange it was (she had a abdominal breath). We soon got in touch with a vet and then a series of tests started. She was such a lovely cat and we were so afraid of losing her. In spite of that problem, she ran, ate and drank normally. After x-rays, blood tests and biochemistry related exams, we were soon able to find out she has a diaphragmatic hernia - probably caused by a trauma like a kick or a fall, as there were no signs that could indicate she was hit by a car or something.
We had two options: The first one was to keep her as she was. The vet said it was a very risky surgery and she had low chances of surviving. Futhermore, as she was doing just fine,her body could have already adapted to the situation and it was possible that she would live a long and normal life as any other cat. However, diaphragmatic hernia is a time bomb and she could get worse suddenly and it would require a even more risky surgery. As I told you guys, I live in a small town of Brazil and here development is concentrated on the capitals. Here we don't have ANY 24h vet that could have done the surgery at these conditions, so we would lose her. That's why we chose the second options: to do the surgery even though she was fine at the moment and take the chances we had. It was very hard to have in mind that we could lose her due to the fact that she seemed ok, but we wouldn't stand losing her if we were wrong about not doing it.
Wednesday Atena had the surgery done. It lasted 3h30 and we were so nervous I can't even express. I cried the hole previous night while she was sleeping on my belly. But thank god and the vets the surgery went perfectly well!!! She needed to stay for 48h there to recovery, and she did so. Now it's Saturday and she is slowly recovering. This postoperative is very delicate and it hasn't been easy to keep her calm, but we are doing our best. I pray she will make it through! She will need 45 days to be able to run and climb the furniture as she did before, but it was worth it. She is now breathing properly and we are even more confident that we will share a long life alongside her.
This is our little fighter:
I'm José Maria and Atena is my kitten! She is approximately 6 months old. She was abandoned 2 months ago near my aunt's house in Escada, a small city of Pernambuco, a state of Brazil. People came to my aunt's asking if she could keep her, and she denied it because she has a not-so-cat-friendly dog. However, what we didn't expect was that the people who brought her gave up trying to find her a new home and left her alone in front of the house. It was such a cold night and she came to me and my parents as we were leaving the house and we fell in love. We brought her that night and the next day we bought everything a cat would need.
We soon noticed she had a problem when she breath due to how fast she did that and how strange it was (she had a abdominal breath). We soon got in touch with a vet and then a series of tests started. She was such a lovely cat and we were so afraid of losing her. In spite of that problem, she ran, ate and drank normally. After x-rays, blood tests and biochemistry related exams, we were soon able to find out she has a diaphragmatic hernia - probably caused by a trauma like a kick or a fall, as there were no signs that could indicate she was hit by a car or something.
We had two options: The first one was to keep her as she was. The vet said it was a very risky surgery and she had low chances of surviving. Futhermore, as she was doing just fine,her body could have already adapted to the situation and it was possible that she would live a long and normal life as any other cat. However, diaphragmatic hernia is a time bomb and she could get worse suddenly and it would require a even more risky surgery. As I told you guys, I live in a small town of Brazil and here development is concentrated on the capitals. Here we don't have ANY 24h vet that could have done the surgery at these conditions, so we would lose her. That's why we chose the second options: to do the surgery even though she was fine at the moment and take the chances we had. It was very hard to have in mind that we could lose her due to the fact that she seemed ok, but we wouldn't stand losing her if we were wrong about not doing it.
Wednesday Atena had the surgery done. It lasted 3h30 and we were so nervous I can't even express. I cried the hole previous night while she was sleeping on my belly. But thank god and the vets the surgery went perfectly well!!! She needed to stay for 48h there to recovery, and she did so. Now it's Saturday and she is slowly recovering. This postoperative is very delicate and it hasn't been easy to keep her calm, but we are doing our best. I pray she will make it through! She will need 45 days to be able to run and climb the furniture as she did before, but it was worth it. She is now breathing properly and we are even more confident that we will share a long life alongside her.
This is our little fighter:
Atena is paws-itively adorable. 
And she's so lucky she found someone, like you, to love and care for her. 
I remember reading about Atena's health problem in another thread. I'm thankful she found her forever home with you. All the best of luck! 
