When Buster – Corinne Supernor’s beautiful black and white cat – got sick, it was because of an unusual appetite: he liked to chew plastic bags.
“Buster would go into the pantry and get ahold of sandwich baggies and chew at them,” she said. “We didn’t know what he was doing. Pretty much any plastic he could get his little paws on, he’d eat it. He liked the noise of it and I guess he just enjoyed it.”
It proved – like some things humans eat compulsively – to be a dangerous and expensive habit. In February last year, Corinne and husband Robert noticed that their cat wasn’t eating or drinking and was not acting normally. So they took him to Alisos Animal Hospital near their Mission Viejo home.
Dr. David Bahou put Buster on an IV, Corinne said, gave him round-the-clock antibiotics and tried to rehydrate him. “Then they did an x-ray. It showed a blockage in his digestive system. They tried giving him barium to make it pass,” she said, “and that didn’t work so they decided to give him surgery. That’s when we found out he had been eating plastic.”
Buster soon was on the road to recovery. But the Supernors were in a financial bind. “We really didn’t have the money to pay for the surgery,” Corinne said. She and her husband both work full time but “with all our other bills it was hard to come up with $4,000. And we didn’t have pet insurance so it was all out of pocket.”
The hospital recommended Angel Fund to help with the costs. “That was wonderful,” she said. “That was such a blessing. We told them our story and what we had been going through with Buster and they gave us a grant, which helped us greatly.”
Angel Fund and the hospital each contributed $500. Corinne and Robert put the balance on a credit card and are slowly paying it off.
And Buster? ”He is doing great. He got really skinny when he was sick. But he’s healthy again. And he loves playing with his brother [a litter mate]. He’s full of life again. He’s a bundle of joy.”
But the Supernors keep a close eye on him. That tempting plastic is kept out of reach. “It was pretty scary. We do not want him going through that ever again.”
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