Lazzy Fund
We believe that every cat deserves dignity. In 2019, we established the Lazzy Fund so that medically fragile cats in our community would have an opportunity to thrive. Many of the cats in our program arrive with illnesses or injuries that require veterinary care well beyond routine services. All too often, life-changing decisions are made based on funding. The Lazzy Fund allows us to make decisions based on quality of life, not available funding.
In April 2019, Ten Lives responded to an urgent request to help an injured cat in our community. We learned that he had lived outside for as long as community members could remember, and had been suffering from injuries for many months. Thanks to dedicated volunteers, we were able to humanely trap him, along with a number of other cats in need of care, so that he could receive the urgent veterinary care that he needed.
His foster family named him Lazarus.
Lazarus, or Lazzy, spent a long time trying to survive outside and his condition reflected that. He had multiple infected wounds, broken teeth, cystitis, hematuria (bloody urine), and a large polyp in his ear. His injuries required extensive veterinary care and frequent follow up visits. Slowly but surely, Lazzy started to improve until one day he became critically ill and was hospitalized.
The Ten Lives community rallied around Lazarus and with their support he was able to recover and thrive. Lazarus would go on to have dental surgery and a total ear canal ablation and ventral bulla osteotomy to cure a lifetime of chronic ear infections and remove a polyp. In November 2019, Lazarus was adopted and finally had the family he had always deserved.
Lazzy’s recovery inspired the founder of Ten Lives to establish the Lazzy Fund in his honor. Individuals near and far rooted for him with each challenged faced, and cheered when he was adopted. Lazzy’s story showed us that when a community works together, remarkable transformation is possible.