Blog – Mandarin's Retreat

Caturday Video

With all the sorrow of the last few weeks, plus too many trips to the human doctor and filling out tax forms, I thought we could have some fun and experiment with video for the first time. As many of you may know, Stella was found by the children of a Reddit poster, who then turned to the community for help when she wasn’t thriving after they’d provided her with vet care and gave her some time to recover. We stepped in.

Thank you Brittany and family for saving this graceful old lady and doing the absolute best to give her a chance at a comfortable and loving retirement!

She was a mess with fur missing on her nose, a polyp in her ear and not nearly enough fat and muscle on her bones. We took her to our vet who said we should expect that cancer was causing the hair loss and inflammation on her nose and that she’s likely need surgery. To make a long story short, Dr Marquez biopsied her nose, removed the polyp from her ear and sent everything off to a lab to see what’s what. As it turned out, her nose was just inflamed but the “polyp” in her ear was cancerous. Unlike Vincent, Stella’s cancer never returned.

What Stella did have was a massive thyroid problem. Her hyperthyroidism was so bad that the lab machine basically stopped counting after a certain point and said “Your guess is as good as mine! Good luck!” The treatment for that is methimazole – a medicine that is basically anti-thyroid and helps us keep her thyroid levels in check. At first we used a medi-pen with which we spread the ointment inside her ear. This worked for about three weeks and then Stella began to break out in lesions around her neck and throat. Yep, she was allergic to something in the pen and we hoped it was just the carrier gel and not the active ingredient itself. We switched to a liquid medicine we found at Chewy, made by Norbrook Laboratories.

We have given liquid medicine to our cats plenty of times over the years. Sometimes its easy, sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it takes a purrito. However, with this medicine from Norbrook Labs…well, see for yourselves:

While we don’t know her exact age, Stella appears to be a very old cat. As her pictures in the gallery show, she can pose with the best of runway models. But, being a very old kitty with arthritis, she can be very weary of the world and its problems. That’s why we call her Pwincess Stella Grumpypants.

Happy Caturday!

(Side note: Norbrook Laboratories is not a sponsor of this post and they have not paid us one, fat treat to post this. It’s simply the very first time we’ve encountered a medicine that a cat actually WANTS to take.)

Friends & Supporters

It’s been a tough week with the loss of Vincent. On the 27th we sent a email to our financial supporters through GiveButter describing our last moments with Vincent. For all our friends and supporters who we do not have an email address, We want to share the same email with you this morning:

Dear Friends of Vincent and donors to Mandarin’s Retreat,

For those of you who do not know, our wonderful fighter and go getter cat Vincent died at 2155 at the El Paso Animal Emergency Center on Tuesday, 25 February. That afternoon, Vincent had undergone an MRI as a final diagnosis procedure to identify what was causing his sinus congestion, as a well as assess the potential spread of his cancer.

We decided on the MRI because Vincent had crashed on us the night before with symptoms that hinted at a stroke or, perhaps, a blood clot.

The procedure was done by a board certified cat neurologist, Dr. Antonio Bowens. Vincent stormed through the MRI without any issues, but we did learn that his cancer had returned with vengeance and was likely causing him the symptoms we’d observed.

When the procedure was completed, Vincent did not want to wake up. His heart rate was all over the place and he wasn’t very interested in recovering. The staff at the ER center watched, waited and provided all the support our kitty needed to recover. Dr. Bowens stayed with Vincent and when it appeared that Vincent would not pull through, he called Mrs H and we came to the ER.

When we arrived at the ER, Vincent was surrounded by a team of nurses, attendants and doctors. One surgical nurse was constantly stroking Vincent and taking to him. We spoke to Big V, petted him and said our goodbyes. Vincent had fought so hard and had tried so hard, but he indicated to Mrs H and myself that he had run his race as long as he could. We agreed with the surgical team and Dr. Bowens that it was time to ease him over the Rainbow Bridge. This we did with everyone of his team in attendance, each saying their own farewells.

The staff moved us to a private room and we spent some time alone with Vincent, telling little vignettes and how Vincent had won the hearts of every care giver who had spent time with him. Of note, the ER staff was jaw dropped when we mentioned that Vincent’s fans and supporters had raised over $13,000 for his care.

My wife and I would like to thank everyone of you for your inspiring generosity, engagement, care and love you have sent to Vincent and to Mandarin’s Retreat. The fact that Vincent and Mandarin – our founding cat – were so alike in their loving nature only strengthens our resolve to carry on the fight to care for the abandoned and unloved cats. We will carry on despite the heartbreak, with the firm knowledge that in the two months and six days Vincent was with us, his was loved, cared for and cuddled not only by us, but by you.

Thank you.

Caturday Financials

Because Mr H loves doing financial stuff on Saturdays (that weirdo), here’s an update on Vincent’s medical bills. As of Friday 21 Feb, the total cost for Vincent’s medical care is $16,646 (more of less – medicines ordered via Chewy and covered by gift cards haven’t been easy to track). We paid off all of the American Express and made some payments on the Care Credit card – both were opened so that we could get quick access to funding to pay for V’s surgery while we were getting money out of the Retreat’s nest egg to cover it should we not get any 0% interest offers. The balance left over on the Care Credit card is $7,300 and we paid a total of $9,381 towards Vincent’s bills.

The charges for 2025 look like this:

Veterinarian	Date	Charge
Desert East Animal Hosp.	01/02/25	$35.00
Desert East Animal Hosp.	01/10/25	$187.20
Sun City Veterinary Surgical	01/14/25	$295.00
Desert East Animal Hosp.	01/22/25	$522.00
Desert East Animal Hosp.	01/24/25	$43.00
Sun City Veterinary Surgical	01/27/25	$8,195.00
Sun City Veterinary Surgical	01/31/25	$4,101.75
Sun City Veterinary Surgical	02/04/25	$81.00
Sun City Veterinary Surgical	02/07/25	$26.25
El Paso Animal Emergency	02/13/25	$2,684.37
El Paso Animal Emergency	02/15/25	$118.86
El Paso Animal Emergency	02/16/25	$25.96
Eye Care for Animals	02/19/25	$276.50
Desert East Animal Hosp.	02/21/25	$115.00
	Total to Date	$16,680.93
	Charges Paid to Date	$9,380.93
	Uncleared Charges	$9,300.00

Total Cash Donations 2025 to Date: $8,543.00

Total Donations in Kind 2025 to Date: $1,588.39

If you have any questions, please contact us at: Meow@mrhwc.org

10-15 Feb – The Week that Was

The week started out simple enough with a trip to see Dr Silverman for a surgical checkup. Vincent’s wound looked great and everything was on track. Mrs H followed up on Tuesday with a visit to her own doc and I had to go see the dentist, so we had a family doctor’s week. Everyone was home for the evening when Vincent started breathing in little gasps with his mouth open. Cats have absolutely no business breathing with their mouths open, so we took him to the Animal ER at once.

We are frequent flyers at the ER and the staff greeted us as old friends. The doc on duty was Dr. Flores, a friend and a magnificent veterinarian. She figured out that Vincent’s pain killers had worn off and his pain was affecting his breathing. They drew some blood and began treatment. Dr. Flores wanted to keep the kitty overnight for further tests and an X-ray. Overnight turned into two nights Vincent’s heart turned out to look a bit funny on the x-ray and Dr Flores wanted to do a heart echo. Dr. Koplos, another amazing physician and someone who has helped us heal many cats, came in and did the test, then sent it off to a cardiologist for a looksy. As it turns out, Vincent had some heart disease but it was in such an early stage and so mild that V’s Doctors suggested we watch and wait, count his breaths and monitor his health at home.

We picked Vincent up from the ER on Thursday and took him back to Dr. Silverman (the surgeon) for a wound check on Friday. Later on Friday afternoon, one of our little FeLV+ cats crashed. Pearl, a very young kitty, had been hit with lymphoma and we’ve been keeping her comfortable for as long as she wanted to be with us. That day, she just absolutely crashed and the kind folks at Desert East helped her over the Rainbow Bridge. We will miss this sweetheart forever.

Saturday morning found me working on finances and sending “Thank You” messages to some new donors. As of 15 Feb, $5,039.75 has been paid on Vincent’s medical tab. And then I was grabbed and told we needed to take Vincent to the ER again – his breathing had gone really bad again. Three hours later we got back to the house with a small ER bill and a referral to Dr Hibbs, a fantastic cat eye doctor who we know very well. Dr Flores at the ER figured out that Vincent’s funny breathing was coming from congestion in his nose instead of anything more serious. She began to wonder whether he had an abscess behind his left eye, perhaps a remnant from his major cancer surgery.

**Vincent on his heating pad with curled paws. Happy Kitty!**

Mrs H found the pet heating pad and introduced it into Vincent’s kennel. Boy, was that cat in heaven. After his meds and a snack he slept on the heating pad, curled up like a kitten. We both collapsed – her into bed and me into my chair with the heating pad and a heated soaker for my feet. We were absolutely exhausted.

Fiscal Tidings

While we weren’t going to focus on fund raising for Vincent’s surgery costs, events have conspired against us. Mr V is spending time back at Dr. Silverman’s clinic and this may indicate an increasing costs for care and medicine. What I want today is to provide you with an insight into where your donations have gone and are going.

The 2nd Annual Report for the Retreat has been posted here. However, I want to provide the funds portion of the report here for your review.

Summary of Major Expenses for the Year 2024:

Expense	Total Spent in 2024
Vet Expenses	$21,185
Food Costs	$10,248
Support Items	$4,843
Admin Expenses	$2,311
Total	$38,587

Summary of Donations

# Grants Awarded	1 for $2,000
# of Monthly Donors	2
# of Quarterly Donors	1
# of Donors over $250	3
# of Donors > $250	52
Cash Donations	$4,589
In-Kind Donations	$3,206
Total Donations	$7,795

As you can see from the numbers, total donations cover only 20.2% of the costs of operating Mandarin’s Retreat. The grant provided only 5.1% of expenses and the grant funds were restricted to specific categories of costs. All and all, Mrs H and I provided 74.7% of the Retreat’s budget from our salaries, pensions and credit cards. The Mandarin’s Retreat credit card is tapped out as are our personal credit and emergency funds. For us to continue to helping sick and injured kitties we need to pay off the loans taken to pay for Vincent’s surgery. The donations put into Vincent’s Surgery Fund only go to pay off his bills. The other campaigns – Keeping Promises, Continuous Support & DAF provide easy links to single donations, monthly or quarterly donations, and Donor Advised Fund donations. These last three campaigns support general costs, upkeep, and medical care for all out cats.

As of 8 Feb, 2025, Mandarin’s Retreat has received $1,478 in cash donations through Give Butter. This was made by 15 donors in 20 transactions. Of these funds, $1,201. went to pay down the Care Credit card bill of $9,001. The remaining amount was paid on the $1,111 charges made on Mandarin’s Retreat visa card for Vincent’s pre-surgery care and tests at our vet and for his medicine and bandages. We have also received $1,043 worth of food, gift cards, and other items from our wish lists. From the gift cards, we purchased Vincent’s food, safety donuts and cones, as well as his medicines ordered from Chewy.

If anyone has any questions or requires further clarity, please use the Contact Us form and we will answer any questions you may have about Mandarin’s.

And now for the plea. I hate asking people for money but the Retreat is deep in the red with this surgery. We covered the 12K cost of Vincent’s surgery with personal funds, but those funds are simply our hospice’s backup money or emergency funds. Without replacing it, we will not be able to care for other very sick cats. You great gifts over the holidays have provided food and funds for Vincent’s previous surgery and vet visit, but when you’re feeding and caring for 60+ cats money vanishes like a Marine’s on leave.

We need 500 folks to donate just $25 to Vincent’s Surgery Fund. This would clear his surgery costs and coupled with the other donations put us back on a solid financial path. All the Retreat’s costs and expenses for 2024 are now published in our Annual Report. We are an open book and every penny is accounted for. Mandarin’s Retreat pays no salaries or personal expenses – we do this all on our own, with our own funding (and sometimes credit) and all the money goes to the cats.

Help us get this one last push through, so that we can continue helping the cats that truly no one wants!