Tanya's Feline Chronic Renal Failure

I run this website single-handedly, and I receive so much mail these days that I often struggle to keep up with my correspondence. So please do read my comments below before you contact me, because it may not be necessary for you to do so, which could save us both some time.

Incidentally, my name is Helen - Tanya was my first CRF cat, in whose honour and memory the site was named.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if:

I've got anything wrong (I've tried my best, but I'm not a vet);

you would like to say thank you - it makes all the work I put into this site worthwhile;

there is something you think I should be including on the site, such as new research. Please do use the google search facility below first to see if I already cover it;

any of the links are broken.

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If you want to ask me a question, please do read the following before contacting me:

remember that I am not a vet and I cannot diagnose or treat your cat;

use the google search facility below. This site is incredibly comprehensive, and in at least 95% of cases, the answers to the questions I am asked are already available on the site. I do already cover Astro's CRF Oil, Azodyl and Rubenal;

unfortunately I am not in a position to offer ongoing assistance - my priority is to maintain this site and run the Support Group I have created. Please feel free to join the group if you need ongoing help, or just want to talk to others who understand. Sometimes people give me a telephone number and ask me to call them. I regret that I am unable to do this (and you yourself should be exercising care in giving your personal contact details to strangers online). If you have an urgent enquiry and/or need ongoing support, please use the google search facility below in case your question is already answered on the site. If it isn't, consider joining the Support Group, which will give you a faster reponse than I usually offer, and can provide ongoing support;

if you want information about a UK vet who might be able to work with you and allow you to give your cat sub-Qs if appropriate, please join the Support Group I run. There are a number of British listmembers who may be able to give you a personal recommendation. In your first post, please state where you are located (your nearest large town or county) and that you are looking for a vet. I read all the list posts, and if I know of a vet in your area, I will contact you privately with details;

If you think you have found a food which is low in phosphorus, please be sure that you are looking at it on a dry matter analysis (DMA) basis before writing to tell me about it. The labels on tins do not provide information on a DMA basis, so that apparently low level of phosphorus is unfortunately unlikely to be accurate (and in the USA, a commercial food cannot by law contain less than 0.5% phosphorus on a DMA basis).
I'm afraid I am not currently able to add any stories to the Other People's Losses or Success Stories pages. I am always happy to read about other people's cats, but I am in the middle of a major site review, so I am not adding to these pages at this time;

if you use some kind of challenge/response system (e.g. earthlink, spamarrest), please whitelist my e-mail address before you write to me. If I take the time and trouble to answer correspondence which you initiated, it is very irritating to be asked to add myself to your list of approved senders, and I will not waste my time doing so. I do answer everyone (except spammers) eventually, so if you use one of these systems and I don't appear to have responded, chances are that I have responded but refused to whitelist myself;

THE MOST IMPORTANT POINT: if your cat is very sick, or his/her condition has suddenly worsened, you need to contact a qualified vet immediately. The internet can never be a substitute for a qualified vet who can physically examine and treat a sick cat.

Translation Offers

Thus far I have received offers to translate my website into Spanish, Swedish, Polish, Hungarian, Chinese and Turkish. Whilst I greatly appreciate these kind offers, I am unfortunately unable to accept these or any other offers of translation. This is for three reasons:

It is extremely important to me to know that any information provided in my name is as accurate as possible. I allowed my site to be translated into German because I am a qualified translator from German and thus am able to judge the accuracy of the translation. I am not able to do this for any other languages, and I therefore cannot permit any other translations.
This site is extraordinarily comprehensive. If you were to try to translate all of it, it would be close to 500 pages long. This would be a big task even for a professional translator, let alone for an unpaid volunteer.
I usually update this site weekly, sometimes daily. This entails me remembering to send amendments to my German translators, waiting for their responses, then checking their amendments are accurate and adding them to the site. This doubles my workload, and having to do this for even more languages would only add further to my workload and stress levels.

Having said all that, I am considering allowing translations of the Key Issues page into various languages, which I would host here. I will be looking into doing this in early 2011. If you would like to help, please contact me. In the meantime, please do not consider translating my site without my knowledge or permission. It is a breach of my copyright to do so. This site is a labour of love for me, a work which I freely make available in two languages to people in need of help. I do not make any money from it, and unauthorised translations, whether for profit or otherwise, are essentially theft.

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Thank you for visiting, and good luck in helping your cat. I wish for you all the success we had in treating Thomas, and more.

Helen

With Harpsie in Starbucks, NYC

Click on the black cat to contact me.

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This page last updated: 29 July 2010

Links on this page last checked: 29 July 2010

You may print out one copy of each section of this site for your own information and/or one copy to give to your vet, but this site may not otherwise be reproduced or reprinted, on the internet or elsewhere, without the permission of the site owner, who can be contacted via the Contact Us page.

If you wish to link to this site, please feel free to do so, and to use the banner ad on the Contact Us page if required. Please make it clear that this is a link and not your own work. I would appreciate being informed of your link.

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