To meet Yasmine is to fall in love with her quirky, outgoing ways and adorably plump frame.One of our lobby greeters, Yasmine has a way of filling the lobby with laughter and fun.She’s happy as a lark to sit in a loving lap, and just as jolly to dart around on her short legs, sniffing her feline lobby-mates and introducing herself to visitors.At only about six years of age, with her super-soft gray fur and sparkling charm, our Yasmine might seem a likely candidate for adoption.Although she is a favorite among our staff and volunteers, Yaz’s odds of adoption are greatly lessened by a medical condition that’s as unique as Yasmine herself.

From the time she arrived at Tabby’s Place, Yasmine continuously emitted a low, constant rumble that could best be compared to snoring. We learned that this puzzling noise resulted from nasopharyngeal stenosis.The nasopharynx is the area of the upper throat that lies behind the nose and is the path air takes when breathed through the nose.Yasmine’s nasopharynx was extremely narrow, almost closed in fact.Short of breathing through her mouth (something cats resist), full-time ‘snoring’ through that little hole was the only way Yasmine could breathe. We were fortunate that a veterinary surgeon skilled in this rare disease was just two hours away at the University of Pennsylvania.Late in 2007, Yasmine joined the exclusive ranks of cats to undergo the procedure (of which there have been only nine), and we hoped that her worries were over. Unfortunately, that was not to be the case.

In an extremely rare turn of events, the anesthesia from Yasmine’s surgery caused her to become blind and neurologically impaired.However, she could finally breathe more easily, and we were told that the blindness was almost certainly temporary.

In the lobby, Yasmine has been making the most of her chance to win more hearts and cuddle up in more laps than ever, and we remain hopeful that a patient person will adopt her. However, since her inhaler treatments are quite expensive and Yasmine has many special needs, we know that she may be with us for a long time. If you’d like to join Yasmine’s well-deserved fan club but can’t take her home, please become her sponsor. With your help, we can do everything possible to give our “Yaz-a-ma-taz” many more years of quirky, cuddly fun.