Help Grizzly Fight for His Life!!
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Every single dollar & penny counts, and brings us one step closer to Grizzly being better!! Follow Grizzly's story on Instagram @HelpGrizzlyFight
Summary:
Our dog Grizzly has been being treated at Colorado State University’s veterinary hospital for over a week now. We believe he was poisoned by someone deliberately trying to hurt him. He is making great progress and is expected to make a full recovery with continued dialysis treatments every 2-3 days over the course of the next 2-3 weeks. Each treatment costs $1200-$1300. If we are unable to continue treatments, we will be forced to euthanize him so that he doesn’t suffer. He is only 3 years old, and still has the chance to live a happy, healthy normal life. These treatments are groundbreaking, and new to the animal industry. CSU is one of very few veterinary hospitals that have the capability to do these treatments. We are hoping that bringing awareness to Grizzly’s story will help these treatments become more well-known, and therefore less expensive so that they are more accessible to everyone cost wise. We also want to bring awareness to pet insurance, because if Grizzly had been insured, the cost for all of his treatments and everything he has been though up until now would have been covered.
Everyone who knows us knows how much we love our dogs. They are our children, our babies, the loves of our life. They are all we talk about, our lives revolve around them. We will do anything and everything we can in the world for them.
Unfortunately Grizzly needs more than we are able to help him with at this point, financially. We have maxed out all our credit cards, and spent everything that we have to spend on Grizzly, so any help would be appreciated more than we could ever explain. Grizzly is only 3 years old, he's very young and strong!!Grizzly is fighting for his life at the Critical Care Unit at Colorado State University's Veterinary Hospital, and he is fighting HARD!! We have spent every second with him, being the only people other than doctors camping out in the Critical Care Unit, laying in his cage on the floor with him for every second that we can. We sleep in the car in the parking lot once they make us leave for the night.
Detailed Information about Grizzly’s Treatment, and what he has been through already:
His diagnosis is not quite clear, originally doctors thought it could be an auto-immune disorder, a tick borne illness, but now they are leaning most toward a toxin.
Here are the facts so far, starting from where it began:
Grizzly was completely normal one week ago. He was happy, healthy, and crazy as most Samoyeds are! That's why we love them! Out of nowhere, overnight he began vomiting and his urine turned black, so we immediately rushed him to the vet. CSU discovered that Grizzly’s blood cells were attacking each other, destroying each other, causing him to become anemic, as if he was severely bleeding internally. They believed he might have something called immune mediated intravascular hemolytic anemia. We aren't sure what caused this immune response, which is the hardest part. Not knowing, makes it harder to treat. All of this could have also been caused by a toxin that we are unaware of, it would have to have been given to Grizzly by a stranger or someone deliberately trying to hurt him. Due to the red blood cells being destroyed, hemoglobin was being released into his body, causing kidney damage, which luckily could be reversible. All of the medicines he's on, cause a risk of him throwing a blood clot, but he's also on medicines to prevent that from happening. He was also at risk of internal bleeding because his platelet count was low, which is what helps your blood to clot. Despite all of this Grizzly has remained very happy and alert most of the time. He has never given the vets or techs a hard time, and has been very patient in getting all of his treatments.
Grizzly has gone through multiple X-rays, and sonograms. He has had bloodwork done over and over throughout the past week to see how he is declining/improving. Grizzly has gone through many, many tests and tried treatments. Grizzly had to be placed on a feeding tube, where he is fed constantly through his nose with a liquid diet, because he wasn’t eating enough for his body to help repair itself. Luckily we were able to remove it because he began eating and drinking on his own. He has received 3 blood transfusions because his red blood cell count got too low to continue treatment. Grizzly was heavily sedated, to receive a plasma treatment that helped him to survive. Basically they were taking all the blood out of his body and "cleaning" it then putting it back in to get all the loose hemoglobin out of his system that's there because of all the red blood cells being destroyed. This treatment greatly improved his numbers and we were hoping that these numbers would hold overnight and into the morning but unfortunately they didn't. So we had to begin a more intense treatment of IV medicines. The good news is that it did bring his hemolysis number down a lot, and caused it to continuously drop afterwards, so there was less hemoglobin in his body causing damage. His hemolysis number is now normal. He might need another blood transfusion at some point if his red blood cell count doesn't continue to maintain as well as it has. The hemoglobin released in his system the first couple of days caused a lot of damage to his kidneys, in an attempt to reverse this damage Grizzly has gone through four kidney dialysis sessions, and will definitely need a few more over the next month or so to continue to help his kidneys heal, and eventually go back to normal. His doctor is recommending a dialysis treatment every 2-3 days for the next 2-3 weeks.
Grizzly will survive
We are hoping for the best, the vets started out giving him a 50/50 chance at the very best, but he has greatly improved since then, and will be able to come home soon, and be treated as an outpatient. The doctors assure us that it is definitely not time to give up, and he still has the chance of coming back from this and living a normal life. This is why we need your help! Every penny counts, and will go directly to CSU towards Grizzly’s treatment. If you can't afford to help, prayers and just sharing/passing this along is appreciated more than we could explain. The vets promised us they would tell us when it's time to let go and think about euthanizing him, and they definitely don't think we are at that point. We don't want to put him through unnecessary tests and treatment if there is no chance of him coming home. Grizzly is still alert and fighting hard, so no one is ready to give up yet. We simply need a little help to continue. Any money we receive that goes beyond what Grizzly needs, will be donated to CSU for funding further research and teaching so other dogs like Grizzly will eventually have a cure.
A big thank you goes out to Dr. Manchester, Dr. Heffner, Momo, Kyle, Jake, Katie, Rebecca, & all the other critical care unit and CSU staff for being so supportive, helpful, for truly caring about Grizzly, helping him get through the past few days, and for letting us camp out all the time in your way on the floor. Even if things don't work out, we are forever grateful.
Please share this in hopes of bringing awareness to Grizzly's case!!! Since the doctors here haven't been able to figure out exactly what's going on with him, maybe someone else who sees this in the veterinarian community might have some ideas that could help! We have been made aware of other Samoyeds that are or have been presenting similar symptoms. If you are one of these Samoyed parents, we would love to hear your story in hopes of learning more about Grizzly’s condition. Doctors don’t believe it’s genetic but any more information doesn’t hurt. We also want to bring awareness to pet insurance, it's only $25-$50 a month, and if we had just insured Grizzly we wouldn't be worrying about the cost of his treatment, everything would have been covered. We learned our lesson, but we want everyone else to learn that lesson from us so this is never anything anyone else has to go through.
Summary:
Our dog Grizzly has been being treated at Colorado State University’s veterinary hospital for over a week now. We believe he was poisoned by someone deliberately trying to hurt him. He is making great progress and is expected to make a full recovery with continued dialysis treatments every 2-3 days over the course of the next 2-3 weeks. Each treatment costs $1200-$1300. If we are unable to continue treatments, we will be forced to euthanize him so that he doesn’t suffer. He is only 3 years old, and still has the chance to live a happy, healthy normal life. These treatments are groundbreaking, and new to the animal industry. CSU is one of very few veterinary hospitals that have the capability to do these treatments. We are hoping that bringing awareness to Grizzly’s story will help these treatments become more well-known, and therefore less expensive so that they are more accessible to everyone cost wise. We also want to bring awareness to pet insurance, because if Grizzly had been insured, the cost for all of his treatments and everything he has been though up until now would have been covered.
Everyone who knows us knows how much we love our dogs. They are our children, our babies, the loves of our life. They are all we talk about, our lives revolve around them. We will do anything and everything we can in the world for them.
Unfortunately Grizzly needs more than we are able to help him with at this point, financially. We have maxed out all our credit cards, and spent everything that we have to spend on Grizzly, so any help would be appreciated more than we could ever explain. Grizzly is only 3 years old, he's very young and strong!!Grizzly is fighting for his life at the Critical Care Unit at Colorado State University's Veterinary Hospital, and he is fighting HARD!! We have spent every second with him, being the only people other than doctors camping out in the Critical Care Unit, laying in his cage on the floor with him for every second that we can. We sleep in the car in the parking lot once they make us leave for the night.
Detailed Information about Grizzly’s Treatment, and what he has been through already:
His diagnosis is not quite clear, originally doctors thought it could be an auto-immune disorder, a tick borne illness, but now they are leaning most toward a toxin.
Here are the facts so far, starting from where it began:
Grizzly was completely normal one week ago. He was happy, healthy, and crazy as most Samoyeds are! That's why we love them! Out of nowhere, overnight he began vomiting and his urine turned black, so we immediately rushed him to the vet. CSU discovered that Grizzly’s blood cells were attacking each other, destroying each other, causing him to become anemic, as if he was severely bleeding internally. They believed he might have something called immune mediated intravascular hemolytic anemia. We aren't sure what caused this immune response, which is the hardest part. Not knowing, makes it harder to treat. All of this could have also been caused by a toxin that we are unaware of, it would have to have been given to Grizzly by a stranger or someone deliberately trying to hurt him. Due to the red blood cells being destroyed, hemoglobin was being released into his body, causing kidney damage, which luckily could be reversible. All of the medicines he's on, cause a risk of him throwing a blood clot, but he's also on medicines to prevent that from happening. He was also at risk of internal bleeding because his platelet count was low, which is what helps your blood to clot. Despite all of this Grizzly has remained very happy and alert most of the time. He has never given the vets or techs a hard time, and has been very patient in getting all of his treatments.
Grizzly has gone through multiple X-rays, and sonograms. He has had bloodwork done over and over throughout the past week to see how he is declining/improving. Grizzly has gone through many, many tests and tried treatments. Grizzly had to be placed on a feeding tube, where he is fed constantly through his nose with a liquid diet, because he wasn’t eating enough for his body to help repair itself. Luckily we were able to remove it because he began eating and drinking on his own. He has received 3 blood transfusions because his red blood cell count got too low to continue treatment. Grizzly was heavily sedated, to receive a plasma treatment that helped him to survive. Basically they were taking all the blood out of his body and "cleaning" it then putting it back in to get all the loose hemoglobin out of his system that's there because of all the red blood cells being destroyed. This treatment greatly improved his numbers and we were hoping that these numbers would hold overnight and into the morning but unfortunately they didn't. So we had to begin a more intense treatment of IV medicines. The good news is that it did bring his hemolysis number down a lot, and caused it to continuously drop afterwards, so there was less hemoglobin in his body causing damage. His hemolysis number is now normal. He might need another blood transfusion at some point if his red blood cell count doesn't continue to maintain as well as it has. The hemoglobin released in his system the first couple of days caused a lot of damage to his kidneys, in an attempt to reverse this damage Grizzly has gone through four kidney dialysis sessions, and will definitely need a few more over the next month or so to continue to help his kidneys heal, and eventually go back to normal. His doctor is recommending a dialysis treatment every 2-3 days for the next 2-3 weeks.
Grizzly will survive
We are hoping for the best, the vets started out giving him a 50/50 chance at the very best, but he has greatly improved since then, and will be able to come home soon, and be treated as an outpatient. The doctors assure us that it is definitely not time to give up, and he still has the chance of coming back from this and living a normal life. This is why we need your help! Every penny counts, and will go directly to CSU towards Grizzly’s treatment. If you can't afford to help, prayers and just sharing/passing this along is appreciated more than we could explain. The vets promised us they would tell us when it's time to let go and think about euthanizing him, and they definitely don't think we are at that point. We don't want to put him through unnecessary tests and treatment if there is no chance of him coming home. Grizzly is still alert and fighting hard, so no one is ready to give up yet. We simply need a little help to continue. Any money we receive that goes beyond what Grizzly needs, will be donated to CSU for funding further research and teaching so other dogs like Grizzly will eventually have a cure.
A big thank you goes out to Dr. Manchester, Dr. Heffner, Momo, Kyle, Jake, Katie, Rebecca, & all the other critical care unit and CSU staff for being so supportive, helpful, for truly caring about Grizzly, helping him get through the past few days, and for letting us camp out all the time in your way on the floor. Even if things don't work out, we are forever grateful.
Please share this in hopes of bringing awareness to Grizzly's case!!! Since the doctors here haven't been able to figure out exactly what's going on with him, maybe someone else who sees this in the veterinarian community might have some ideas that could help! We have been made aware of other Samoyeds that are or have been presenting similar symptoms. If you are one of these Samoyed parents, we would love to hear your story in hopes of learning more about Grizzly’s condition. Doctors don’t believe it’s genetic but any more information doesn’t hurt. We also want to bring awareness to pet insurance, it's only $25-$50 a month, and if we had just insured Grizzly we wouldn't be worrying about the cost of his treatment, everything would have been covered. We learned our lesson, but we want everyone else to learn that lesson from us so this is never anything anyone else has to go through.
Organizer
Evan Wollman
Organizer
Fort Collins, CO
