As I write this I'm not sure if I have the right words to ever possibly express the gratitude my family and I have for Frankie's Friends, the miracle donors or the staff at BluePearl, especially Dr. Piscatelli, Dr. Pittman and Eileen.
Bandit came to our home daily as a neighborhood cat, he would sit in our garage as my husband and son worked on projects. Bandit would get some love and scratches while supervising their progress... and they both fell in love with him quickly.
Every night... one of us would deliver him back to his owner with a gentle reminder he should really be kept inside as the neighborhood posed many dangers. Everyday Bandit came back....we joked about stealing him and now regret that we never did.
One morning my husband was getting in his car to go to work when he heard the dogs next door and Bandit fighting. He jumped the fence and tried to get to him as soon as possible.. but the damage had been done at that point. He rushed him to our local vet, handed them our credit card and pleaded for them to save him. He was quickly diagnosed with multiple life threatening conditions, the owner said to put him down, she didn't want to spend the money, but said if we assumed responsibility we could keep him.
My husband told the vet to proceed with treatment and that we would do all we could. It was decided in order to give Bandit the best possible chance my husband would need to transport Bandit to BluePearl. Once at BluePearl we exhausted every possible financial avenue we had. Bandit was diagnosed with extremely bruised lungs, multiple bite wounds, a possible abdominal wall tear, cracked sternum and a back leg that would need to be amputated. We were committed to providing him a safe indoor life but the cost was more than we could handle. That's when Frankie's Friends stepped in and saved Bandit...without your intervention the next step would have been euthanasia, as we had run out of options. You literally plucked him from death and for that we will be forever grateful.
As of today... his sternum is healing nicely, he is learning to get around on three legs and is adapting to watching squirrels and birds safely through a window. He is still on antibiotics to fight a lung infection that started a few days after surgery, but otherwise he is making friends with our other cats... all of them rescues, two of them blind...he fits in perfectly. He seems to have chosen our Lilly as his favorite, she is a petite little tabby girl we rescued as a kitten when her mother was killed (I enclosed a picture of her as well). He has taken over quite a few napping places and seems to really love tunnels and balls with bells in them. Bandito is an excellent pill taker and patient and his prognosis now is one of a great life, filled with love, cuddles and cat companionship, along with yummy food and treats and most of all safety and stability with the people he seemed to have chosen long before we knew it. I'm sure if he could tell you thank you he would!
