Hi, I am Yeti's Mom - Graci.

 

 

Yeti is a Blue Great Dane, and his 3rd Birthday is this May!

 

A few days ago he got really sick and and I had to rush him to the emergency vet.

 

He wasn't able to keep any food or water down. He threw up everything he tried to eat and drink. It wasn't long after that, that he lost his appetite all together. Yeti became very lethargic and lost so much weight in a short amount of time (later to find out it was approx. 22lbs).

 

We went to the ER at 0530 only to have them quote me around $600 just for x-rays but then we would have to leave because they were closing at 0800 so they wouldn't have time to treat him.

 

I opted to leave there & wait for my primary vet to open at 0800 for an urgent care visit. When we got there the vets recommended we do an exam, administer him some anti-nausea medicine, and hospitalize him for the day to put him on an IV while running some blood tests.

 

 

I thought that this would be a good start given how confident the vet was that this would help him. I went and picked him back up that evening and the vet assured me that he was much better and they were confident that he would be okay.

 

Then that night around 2200 (10pm) he became even more lethargic than he had been and he was spitting up water. I could tell that his body wanted to throw up but he was on heavy anti-nausea medicine and I think it was hurting him more than helping him.

 

The next morning around 0500 he wouldn't move from the couch. He look so tired and helpless and very sick. I had to leave for work but right when my primary vet had opened at 0800, I called them and they told me to bring him there ASAP.

 

I left work to pick him up and drive him the the vet. They proceeded to run more tests and give him more fluids while I hospitalized him there for the day again.

 

 

 

Only for them to call me that they don't know whats wrong with him and tell me he needs to immediately be transferred to a Specialty Vet for surgery that evening. I had asked them about how much the surgery would cost & they told me it would estimate from $3,000-$4,000 without any complications.

 

 

 

 

"He will die without Surgery."

 

That's what my primary vet told me.

 

I was heartbroken. How was I going to afford this and keep my boy alive?

 

So we went to the specialist. I explained to them that I didn't know how much money i could keep spending to try and save Yeti.

 

They heavily encouraged me to allow them to vacuum out all the fluid that had caused his stomach to dialate and to run more blood tests to find the cause of his sickness as well as to hospitalize him overnight to receive more fluids and to be closely monitored while awaiting the results.

 

So I did that.

 

 

I had to finance that bill through ScratchPay because I was running out of options.

 

I called them the next morning and they had said that all the tests came back negative and they need to move on to the next recommended step of an exploratory surgery as well as a gastropexy & biopsy from his intestine to rule out more potential illnesses in one week, unless his symptoms persist that night into the weekend. in that case I would have to bring him in for emergency surgery.

 

Without complication I was looking anywhere to $3,000-$6,000.

 

Unless he had a rare condition of scar tissue build up that they would find during surgery, that would be very "messy" & "very complicated".

 

So I took Yeti home with the hope that he would stay healthy for as long as possible for me to try and raise the money to afford his surgery.

 

 

Without it, he won't be able to get it & and his days will be limited.

***RECAP***

The vets haven’t ruled out what kind of sickness officially, just that it is leaning towards looking like a chronic illness related to the GI or Stomach. They want to do a gastropexy to make sure when his stomach dilates that it won’t flip, as well as an exploratory and to take a biopsy to try and find the cause of his severe symptoms and make a treatment plan.

They haven’t ruled out Addison Disease yet unless it could be called something different. But the X-rays showed his stomach being so dilated that it filled up his entire abdomen.

I’ll see if my vet will email me the photos to post here as well so you can see. They did a full blood panel at my vet as well as specific testing I guess for the pancreatic enzyme deficiency (I think that’s how you say that) and I know that there was, I think, two other specific test they did that I’ll have to get the names of but everything is coming back normal/negative. Hence why they want to do an exploratory surgery as well as the gastropexy 

****Our goal is set to $8,000 in the event to cover any complications in his surgery and to cover the existing loan and credit card debt for the first three bills. ****