Raising For Daisy Etsy Sale.

Last Tuesday I left my sewing machine unattended for about an hour. I hardly ever do this because I have cats, and cats like string. But I’m human and I got distracted. When I returned, our youngest cat, Zelda, had the cotton thread in her mouth, and had pulled it all over the room. I removed a length of thread from down her throat, and sighed with relief, having seemingly dodged a bullet.

On Wednesday our middle cat, Daisy, started throwing up. We thought she had a hairball. She’s prone to them, with her gorgeous dense fur. When she hadn’t bought anything up on Thursday, we took her to the vet. She was very dehydrated, and was immediately put on fluids. They could feel a lump in her stomach, and while we were told it could be string, a tumour, or a blockage, I knew in my gut that it was string. I knew it would be black cotton thread.

She had surgery on Friday. The thread had ripped a hole in her intestines. This happens because the thread gets caught, and then the intestine keeps moving, trying to do its job, but it ends up just bunching together, and the string cuts though her intestine. She had about 5cm of dead intestine removed, and the good ends stitched together.

Right now, she’s still in a critical condition. There’s a good chance that the intestine won’t heal together, and it will start to die. If it doesn’t heal we will have to put her to sleep. 30cm (12 inches) of cotton thread might kill my girl. I’m staying positive, but it’s a very difficult time for us. Things are really looking promising now, we won’t know until she has a vet checkup on Friday (10/6) but she pooped! And she’s continued with the pooping and eating, she doesn’t have a temperature and she’s really happy and relaxed. I’m not happy and relaxed yet, but I’m getting there.

Daisy is the most wonderful cat. She loves to leap into bed in the evenings to have a chat, her voice always makes me smile, she has such a distinctive little meow. She loves it when you scratch the base of her tail, and she loves to groom her sisters. Her favourite toy is a scrunched up piece of paper, she’ll suddenly appear when she hears anything being scrunched up. She’s our little acrobat, she can leap so high in the air, and she once did a somersault onto the couch. She has one white whisker, which I really want to collect when it falls out, and has one white eyebrow hair, which makes her look perpetually dubious. We call her Fang, because when you scratch under her chin she curls her lip and shows off her fangs. We also call her Fuzzbutt, because she has the fuzziest of butts. The classic Daisy pose is in a loaf with one leg extended, which she uses as a pillow. We couldn’t possibly love her any more than we already do, and I can’t imagine my days without her.

Less than 3 months ago we nearly lost her sister, Maisie. Maisie had been living with diabetes, without showing any symptoms, and nearly died when her blood went acidic. She’s made a full recovery now, with the help of two insulin injections a day.

We managed, with help from family, to deal with Maisie’s $2000 vet bill. Daisy’s could double that. The estimate at the moment is $3200. (This is about $3400US.) I am trying to start my own small crafting business, and Matt is a student. That amount of money is beyond our comprehension.

Daisy Updates: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

There are a few ways you can help.

First, I am having a sale. You can get 30% OFF anything in my store, please go and have a look and

see if anything catches your eye. Use coupon code: DAISY.

Second, I am organising a raffle. GO HERE to donate via PayPal. Every $5 will be an entry into a giveaway I will be posting next week. The prize will be lots of goodies from me, and other lovely cat loving bloggers. You can donate now, or wait and see what’s on offer. *Go here to see what’s on offer in the giveaway*

Third, if you’re a crafter, thrifter, cat lover, or any combination of the three, please email me ( agiraffeinascarf@gmail.com ) if you’d like to donate an item for the raffle. I now have over 20 giveaway items that will be posted twice a day until they run out. I am shocked and humbled and excited and everything in between by the generosity of the handmade community. If you have something you’d really like to give still feel free to contact me.

And finally, please pass this along. Not only am I ‘Raising For Daisy’, I am also raising awareness of the dangers of cats eating thread, string, wool or ribbon. Crafting and cats seem to go hand in hand, but sometimes the results can be disastrous. Grab the code below to link to this post.

<div align="center"><a href="https://agiraffeinascarf.wordpress.com/2011/06/04/raising-for-daisy-etsy-sale/" title="A Giraffe in a Scarf"><img src="http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y101/mattcore/raisingfordaisy.jpg" alt="A Giraffe in a Scarf" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

Thank you lovely people, for all the emails, tweets and comments. Daisy, Matt and I all appreciate the thoughts and prayers more than you can imagine.