Bijoux's Story - a little cat who needs help!

Bijoux is a perfect example of one of the "special cases" that Project Jessie helps every year.

While MOST of the animals that come into the program are healthy and just need help finding a good home, sometimes surprises appear.

Bijoux is a very tiny, fluffy white cat. She was initially picked up as a stray by one of the animal control operators in Montreal. Because she had an odd snuffling sound to her voice, they thought that she had upper respiratory illness, and she was scheduled to be euthanised.
On May 31st/2007 two of our Animal Alliance Directors were in Montreal meeting with animal control personnel. While touring the facilities they noticed poor Bijoux in the back room -waiting to be killed. They asked if they could have her and when the pound agreed, she was taken immediately. Bijoux went straight to a local vet where she was examined and viral tested (negative). She was soooo thin!

She was vomiting her food, so they tried different types until they could find one that she tolerated well. Everything seemed to be fine, until the frantic phone call. Bijoux's throat had balooned out - she was having trouble breathing, and had a huge mass in her throat. They asked permission to do xrays. Those xrays were repeated an hour later, and I was told that they showed nothing remarkable at all.

They diagnosed her with "air in her trachea and/or esophagous" and said it was outside of their experience and there was nothing they could do. They did feel that she was stable enough to travel, and so we continued to make arrangements for her to come to Toronto.
On June 9th some wonderful volunteer drivers brought Bijoux all the way from Montreal through Toronto and up to my house in Caledon.She was not eating very well, was occasionally sneezing, and occasionally vomiting.

I spent the first few days with her regurgitating up to 20 times a day. Her first vet had her eating a very small kibble, but she was only eating a few kibbles a day. She weighed only 1.4kg when she arrived here. (Just for comparison, she weighed about the same as the 12 week old kittens I was fostering at the time).

I changed her to a totally liquid diet, feeding her on my shoulder and holding her upright for 15 minutes 4 to 6 times daily. That worked well for awhile, but then she got the runs as the food was just too rich to stay on for long. Then we had a week of grinding her kibble, soaking it in water, then mixing the mash half and half with the liquid diet.

During this time I was consulting with our own vet, and had one midnight run to the emergency clinic for suspected aspiration pneumonia (AP). I was doing my own research like crazy, and we were waiting for an appointment with the internal medicine specialist.
(If it doesn't start automatically, see

Bijoux's video on YouTube)

Finally, Bijoux had her specialist visit.

After taking her history and doing inital exam, Bijoux had a contrast radiograph done and she has "classic" Vascular Ring Anomaly. So classic that they don't feel that she even needs scoping or fluoroscopy to confirm diagnosis. It was very interesting to see the rads. She has a very large esophagous from her mouth, to just before her heart. There she has a "pouch" about 5cm/2" in diameter. As the esophagous passes over her heart, it is constricted to about 2 or 3mm (1/8"). Everything gastro past that point looks normal. So basically, her esophagous is shaped like a sand timer, and she must be always hungry as she gets only a few drops of food at a time. Poor wee girl!

Vascular ring anomaly constricts the esophagus - this is a situation in which the fetal blood vessels are still present when they should not be. The vessel passes over the esophagus and captures it between the aortic arch and other structures, constricting it. This can be cured surgically in many cases. Because she has been coping with this for 2 years though, they expect that the esophageal motility is likely to be permanent impaired. In other words, the surgery will enable food etc. to pass into her stomach, but she will most probably always have mega-e, and need to be fed liquid or semi-solid meals from a standing position for life.
After her consultation, although she had gained weight (now she weighed 1.7kg) we switched her food to canned Hill's a/d, mixed half and half with water. I continued upright feeding, but also gave her an elevated bowl so taht she could continually self-feed through the day. She did really well with this, and we had no regurge at all for a month. Yipee!!!

After a month, and while waiting for the two clinics that felt that could do the surgery to come back with quotes and an available date... Bijoux now weighs 2.1kg and is looking good. Her coat and energy are much better and I am much more confident that she can survive the surgery.

Anyway, (long winded - sorry!!!) our wee Bijoux is headed for her surgery this Tuesday (August 21st).

I can certainly tell you, that she has touched many hearts, and if she doesn't survive the surgery it will be a really awful day at my house!

I also realize that if she does survive the surgery we still have challenges to face, but I do think this will give her the best chance at having a "normal" life. At the moment I have to keep her in a large enclosure, or watch her like a hawk if she is out in the house. She will hoover up any tiny pieces of food, crumbs, dust bunnies etc that she finds on the floor. I am sure that she is hungry all the time. The problem is of course that if she swallows something that can't pass her stricture, and doesn't break down in the esophagus, she could easily puncture her esophagus. I want so much for her to have more freedom...

Anyway, if you can spare a few vibes or good thoughts for us next Tuesday we would really appreciate it! It is so nice to know that there are others out there who care...

While the amazing veterinarians at the clinic have been compassionate enough that they have agreed to do Bijoux's surgery at cost, it will still be about $1000 for the surgery (on top of the $1000 we have already spent on initial work, testing and consults) and the $5/ day for her special food.

If you are able, you could help us now by

contributing to Bijoux's surgery costs through our website today!

Thank you!