I'm sorry, but I just have to post this. I've met a great number of very nice and kind people on the internet, but something happened last evening that completely took my breath away and caused me to cry waterfalls of tears. And I just have to share this with you.

My oldest cat got sick at the end of February. I took her to the veterinarian. They examined her and did complete blood work and took her blood pressure.  Other than having high blood pressure and needing to have 1/4 of a pill a day, and a few cavities, she is healthy. No problems with her liver. No obstructions. Nothing wrong with her eyes.  No diabetes. No problem with her thyroid.  Her kidney's are not working 100% but she is not in kidney failure. She just needs to have a kidney diet to prevent further deterioration and it's likely that she could live out the rest of her life without ever getting actual kidney failure. She is 16 years old and he's very impressed with her level of health.

I am currently off work on long term disability. It's a fixed income and barely meets my monthly expenses. So paying for a vet meant having to make payment arrangements with them and then rejuggle my budget to pay the vet. It hasn't been easy, but I've been managing.

This past week I took notice that my cat is favouring the side of her mouth that has a bad tooth. I didn't initially realize that her "messiness" while eating was because of the tooth. I thought she was just being picky. He did point out that bad tooth to me during the visit, but I didn't realize she was having such pain while trying to eat until I actually sat to watch her.

Anyway, the vet quoted me $700.00 to pull her bad tooth, plus the others that need pulling.  My brother said he would help me out with the bill, but even if he paid $300.00 that left me with $400.00 to keep paying on my own. Something I just couldn't afford to do.

So I made a tough decision to take my healthy cat to the vet at 11:30 am today and have her euthanized because I couldn't afford the vet bill to extract the teeth that are causing her pain and preventing her from eating.

I was feeling like such a failure for having to do that just because of a couple of bad teeth. But I had no other alternative because I just couldn't afford the treatment she needed. . I can't stand to see her in pain and begging for food because she's hungry and not being able to eat the food.

I post on a cat related website, and when Chynna got sick at the end of February I made a thread asking fellow cat owners to send out positive thoughts that it wasn't anything major.  And I've kept up the thread since, giving Chynna's progress.  She was doing exceptionally well until her tooth started to really hurt last week. 

A fellow in New Foundland read  about Chynna and being a fellow cat lover didn't like the idea of my having to have Chynna, a healthy cat, euthanized because of my life circumstances at this time.

So he contacted me and offered to pay the vet bill for me.

At first I thought it was some colossal cruel joke, but I didn't go off on him. Instead I thanked him  for his kindness and toldhim that I coudln't accept the money.  We exchanged several private messages, and I came to see that he was being 100% sincere.about his offer.

I have a great deal of pride and also some shame for the situation that I find myself in with life right now. I'm doing my best to get back to my job and it looks like this year will finally be the year because i'm actually in physio and doing really well with it. The next step will be a back to work program and I hopefully will be back at my job by the end of summer or early fall.

He told me to not let pride stand in the way of getting Chynna the medical help that she needs right now.

I pushed my pride aside and accepted his kindness. I got a call from the vet's office today. He contacted them to make arrangement for payment of the procedure. Chynna is scheduled to have surgery on Wednesday.

So I  get to have some extra years with my baby girl because of the kindness of a complete stranger named Gerry from New Foundland.

He doesn't want me to pay him back. We had a bit of an argument about that. But he does want me to pay it forward once I'm back to work and on my feet financially.

I'm so blown away and numb.  I still can't believe it.

"It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to say." - Ghandi