Diabetic Care for Coco

Here is the story of Coco. I have a thing for mini pinschers. I absolutely love them. I also have a thing for special needs dogs. So when a rescue contacted me about a mini pinscher in Central Illinois, who had a previously diagnosed heart condition, I was all over that. Jobs are hard to come by in Central Illinois so $50 a month for heart medicine was a lot. The rescue made it perfectly clear that Coco was not going through the rescue so there would be no financial help. I can handle $50 a month o it was not a problem. An amazing woman named Allison arranged transport. We had four transport vehicles meet up at predisclosed locations for the 5 hour ride and Coco was brought to me, in the Chicago area, from Salem, Illinois. I started her on her heart medication right away because she was not taking it the way she was supposed to. And once you read the story thank goodness she wasn't. When it comes to medical care for dogs I keep logs for everything. When they peed, when they cough, when they looked at me funny. Because you never know if that was a symptom of something. So the first thing I did was take her heart rate. I took her heart rate about every half an hour because at this point her heartbeat is over 200 beats a minute which is extremely fast. But now she has her heart medicine so her heart rate is going down slowly but surely. I am of course thinking that it's her heart medication causing this. But now she's getting nauseous and she's throwing up and she can't keep food down. So I contacted her previous owner and asked her if this medication made her sick. She said it usually did for about two days. I figured we had to get through two days. All this time every half hour all day long I'm taking her heart rate and I'm watching it go down and down and she's getting sicker and sicker. I had already made an appointment for her at my vet for that Monday. At this point I figured she would have had the medication in her system for a week and it would give the vet a good idea to see how her body was reacting to her heart medication. The day of her appointment she was so sick she could barely move her head. In hindsight I should have taken her sooner but I was doing exactly what I was told through the directions of the previous vet. I take her to my vet a bit earlier because of a cancellation. At this point she's barely moving. After an exam and in-house labs it was determined that not only did she not have a heart condition but she was in fact severely diabetic. She was dying. She was going into kidney failure and had severe pancreatitis. Her organs were shutting down. And giving someone heart medication who doesn't have a heart problem can kill them. And I kind of stood there dumbfounded because I have no idea what to do and felt horrible for giving her the heart medication that she was prescribed by the other vet. I've only had her for a few days  and I don't have a lot of money. But it's a life. And I do have a very high regard for life so I figure let's give her 24 hours and see what happens. She was sent to the emergency overnight vet because she was so dehydrated she needed a lot of subcutaneous fluids. Because she was already in such bad shape we did briefly discussed euthanasia but I said I can't do that without giving her a chance. She stayed at the overnight vet's and I was told if I don't hear from them by midnight to go to bed and make sure I got some sleep. And then I picked her up at 7:30am and took her back to my vet at 8 a.m. Where she stayed. And then at 7 p.m. that night I picked her up and took her back to the overnight vet. I was really lucky that she clearly had an amazing team of doctors . While she wasn't necessarily getting better, she wasn't getting worse. The big issue was trying to stabilize her glucose levels and rehydrate her. Again we talked about euthanasia at the emergency vet. And I said I can't imagine jumping back from the brink of death in 24 hours. Let's give her 12 more hours. Well lo and behold. She needed 12 more hours. Now she's rehydrating; her glucose levels are stabilizing. She did develop eye ulcers which are very common in diabetics ( I put medication her eyes twice a day for a few weeks and there were no signs of ulcers after that) . But, she's coming back from the brink of death. But she still needed two more days in the hospital. Keep in mind the miniature pinscher rescue made it perfectly clear they will not offer one dime a financial help. When I told them what happened all they said to me was oh, that's terrible. And we're very glad she's feeling better. Allison, the woman who arranged transport, did put out a call for donations and many were called into my vet's office. About $400 worth. And oh my goodness it helped so much. I put everything else on my credit card. So so much on my credit card. I figured things will eventually get paid. Having had diabetics in my family I am super paranoid about glucose levels and we are unable as the pet owner to check the levels. So I did have two glucose curves done. That's when she stays at the vet's office all day and they check her glucose levels every couple of hours to see if she's getting the right amount of insulin. Presently I inject 3 units of insulin in the morning and four units of insulin at night. 7 units of insulin for a 13 lb dog. My understanding is that's a lot of insulin for such a small body. That's how bad her diabetes is. I also come home from work around 1 in the afternoon to give her a midday snack because her glucose levels tend to dip about that time. Fast forward a few months and she's doing great until she wasn't. Coco's not bouncing around like she usually does. She jumps in the air like a kangaroo bouncing around waiting for her insulin and food. She didn't look right. I thought maybe her insulin levels were off. Luckily my vet is across the street. And they know her very well so I didn't have to make an appointment. I went in just to get a glucose check. The vet tech took one look at her and said oh no that's not Coco. 104 degree fever. $750 later in in-house labs to determine a severe kidney infection. Because of her diabetes and the dangerously high fever we thought that we might have to send her to the overnight emergency vet again. My mouth went dry. I don't have the money anymore. She has literally wiped me out. But because they also know that I take very good care of her she was able to come home with me. She was on antibiotics for 2 weeks and she's perfectly fine. Now going forward I make sure there's a lots of extra water in her food so that she keeps her kidneys hydrated and flushed out. The ongoing cost of diabetic  care is pretty expensive. I'm lucky that she's so small and a vial of insulin will last me 3.5 months and is about $120. Needles are about $25 a month. An insulin curve every 3 months is $175 each. That is just standard diabetic care. But I really need help paying for these other bills. I know that if something happens in the future I no longer have open credit on my credit card to pay for it. If Coco has another kidney infection or has a bout of pancreatitis, I can't help her without getting some of this credit card debt down from her previous medical bills. This makes me very nervous . her vet bills came to almost $5,000 including this last kidney infection. It does not include her 3 month check up next month. Or the new bottle of insulin I just bought or the needles I need to buy next week. I truly appreciate any amount. And if you're not in a position to donate if you could please share and bring awareness to this fundraiser. I absolutely appreciate it from the bottom of my heart. Thank you so much.