Moxies emergency surgery funds
Donation protected
Hi, my name is Kellianna, and I’m making this go fund me for my heart horse, who isn’t just a horse to us she’s a part of the family and currently her life is on the line… This is my first time ever making one of these things or asking for help in any type of way from the public so please bare with me here…
About me - I am a single mom of 2 kiddos, a 4 year old little girl and 5 year old little boy. I have been riding horses since before I was even their age, and I’m almost 30 now, to say this is my passion would be an understatement, this is my life! I am the sole owner of a 13 year young mare named Moxie. Out of all the horses I’ve rode I’ve only ever had a bond like I have with Moxie, with one other horse named Dally that passed away in my childhood and it really broke my heart loosing her. When I met Moxie I instantly felt that Dally had handpicked her and sent her to me, I had never felt the presence of Dally in another horse the way I could with Moxie, so of course she quickly became part of the family! Moxie is the type you don’t find very often, I can put my kids on her back and she will babysit them all day and then I can hop on and run a 17 second pattern! She has healed that part of me that got so badly broken when I lost Dally, and inspired in my kids the same love for horses and this sport that Dally inspired in me so long ago, and for that I can NEVER repay her but we’re for sure gonna try! This mare is PRICELESS to us!
September 7th, 2024, the night of the incident that leads us here today.
Moxie was tied up to the trailer eating like normal, while we were getting ready to go make a run, when she choked on an alfalfa cube. We immediately sprung into action, and the fellow barrel racing community quickly jumped on deck as well, we had people we’d never met before working from many different angles to help our girl, while we tried to find a vet hospital to get her to. We get her to pine Ridge equine hospital and get her un-choked within under 2 hours from start to finish, and she bounced back quickly, we were sent home with the expectation that she would return to normal within 12 to 24 hours.. but by next day, September 8th, I was calling pine ridge again and telling them that she had had no interest in drinking ANY water at all.. and by this time you are starting to see effects of that in her behavior, we are told to give her some oral banamine for relief of inflammation, thinking that she is probably sore from the choke and just isn’t wanting to drink much. By that evening after giving the oral banamine, we are calling pine ridge again because she STILL hasn’t drank anything..and at this point she’s becoming lethargic… we’re advised to take her to her normal vet on Monday September 9th, When I unload her off the trailer at her normal vet, the urgency is high, at this point she is super lethargic and her neck is super swollen! We immediately draw blood work to see if we can gain any more information about our situation, but blood work is look pretty normal, outside of just being dehydrated, but based off of other signs and symptoms she is showing, we administer a penicillin shot as precaution, because though blood work isn’t showing it, we’re feeling like we’re dealing with more than just post choke complications at this point. We get fluids in her and given the state she’s in we make the executive decision to hospitalize her. By Monday night, things are looking up, she has drank a bucket and a half of water on her own, this gives us hope, but she is not ready to come home until after she has had re-introduction to food and things go smoothly.
Tuesday September 10th, she is re-introduced to senior mash and chokes again… which is not extremely surprising given the restriction the swelling has caused, she un-chokes easy, and things are rolling again! But we’re still feeling like there’s something else wrong, so we run more bloodwork, and her white blood count is slightly elevated this time, indicating that there is indeed infection somewhere, so we start routine antibiotics. The rest of Tuesday goes smoothly, no more chokes and she was successfully eating and drinking on her own, but we are touch and go and we know it, so we’re not ready to bring her home by any means because obviously we don’t want to take steps backwards.
Wednesday September 11th, she ends up choking again… mind you she hasn’t been introduced to ANYTHING dry at all! The restriction is so tight, she’s choking on soaked food, and the more she chokes and has to be tubed, the more inflammation and scar tissue it’s building, we’re in a game of cat chasing tail at this point.. The rest of Wednesday evening goes smoothly, but again, we know that things can change quickly, so we are airing with extreme precaution. The antibiotics are obviously having a positive impact at this point though.
Thursday September 12th, goes smoothly all day, and we’re thinking we’re on the uphill side of this, she’ll probably get to come home soon!
Friday September 13th, the morning feedings go well, and at afternoon feeding she chokes AGAIN… at this point we’re trying not to get discouraged, but Moxie is no longer lethargic and is still showing signs of improvement, despite choking again, so we keep pushing to get her better! The rest of Friday goes really well, and the plan is to pick her up the next day, until she chokes again that evening…
Saturday September 14th comes, the day we’re supposed to get to take her home, and just as we’re about to go get her, she takes us for another wild loop, no choking this time but she had been on 20 mins intervals in the round pin every day, and because this was pickup day, she was out for about 45 mins total because they were cleaning up her stall and everything getting ready for her to come home and doctor goes out to say her goodbyes, because EVERYONE has fallen in love with this mare and is TOTALLY invested! When she goes out to check on her she finds Moxie profusely sweating and running a high fever, so they quickly pull her in and go to work getting her stable, and call me back to say, she stays again. At this point, I’m like please do, just save our girl!! Once they get her stable the rest of Saturday goes smooth.
Sunday September 15th, the whole day goes smooth, no chokes, a mild spike in fever around 12pm but quickly comes back down after cold hose and banamine, so now we’re a go for Monday pick up!
Monday September 16th, the day is FINALLY here, we get to take her home!! There is still a massive amount of swelling, but there has been so much improvement and she is still on antibiotics, we get home, she settles in nicely, you can tell she’s happy to be home, the rest of the day goes super smooth!!
Tuesday September 17th, everything is going smoothly, we’re still showing signs of improvement, signs of swelling going down, and the only problem we are running into Is that around noon her fever is still spiking, but is brought down by cold hose and a dose of banamine. She is eating normal, drinking normal, behaving so much better, still not quite back to normal behaviorally, but not lethargic!
Wednesday September 18th, looks like a repeat of Tuesday, Everything goes super smooth besides the fever peeking around noon, but is still breaking after medication and cold hosing, and we are still seeing signs of improvement all around.
Thursday September 19th, things all look normal in the morning, but by noon, she is crashing, behavior still seems pretty stable, but when her fever spiked at noon, it didn’t come down this time after medication and cold hose, and by this time im getting worried about the quality of her kidney function, because she has had a daily dose of banamine for basically right at two weeks at this point, which isn’t good on their kidneys… so we load her up again and go back to the vets, we do bloodwork again, which pretty much looks like it has, still showing elevated white blood count but shows Improvement, and kidney function looks good so we are good to go back home, and have the go ahead to be able to continue to administer banamine when needed for fever spike without worrying about causing kidney failure. The rest of the evening goes good!
Friday September 20th, things have gone good all day, and a very dear friend offers to come out and do PEMF(electromagnetic wave therapy) on her and we are excited to see what type of improvement it will have! During the therapy session, she feels so good that she is able to lower her head/neck further than she has been able to since night of initial choke, she’s feeling so good during therapy that she almost falls out from underneath herself, falling asleep, and after treatment showed so much relief that she laid down flat in her paddock to rest, and you could tell that this had made night and day difference!! Saturday September 21st, OUR FIRST FEVER FREE, BANAMINE FREE DAY, since initial choke!!!! Today we have showed huge signs of improvement!!! Today we apply ice tight( a clay poultice) to her neck in order to try to draw some of the rest of the swelling out and offer her some more relief! Most of the day we hadn’t seen much change but by 11:30 at night the middle of her neck had started to leak adema, which sounds like a bad thing, but it is exactly what we needed tto happen in order to get that swelling out! Sunday September 22nd, The spot of internal infection we have been treating with antibiotics had finally ruptured the bottom of her neck, again, sounding like things are getting worse, but they are actually getting better, this means that the infection is finally leaving her body!! The rest of the day is VERY full of hope!!
Monday September 23rd, we go back into the vet, so she can get some samples of the infection that has ruptured out her neck in order to see if need to change antibiotics, we run some more blood just to see where we’re at, clean the entire wound all out and flush it, then head back home and wait for results from the swab!
Tuesday, September 24th, the day that leads us to present… when I went to go clean Moxie’s wound out I noticed that she is having an extremely hard time, swallowing or breathing.. meaning the pressure from the infection inside still and the one that finally ruptured through the outside was closing in on her! The air was heavy, and this time the tears were falling, and falling hard.. we know this time things are getting critical and if we don’t get her to the right spot 12 hours, she won’t make it…. Panic is starting to really set in.. we can’t loose her.. my kids and I won’t be okay... She means EVERYTHING to us!! We make the decision to head to OSU Stillwater veterinary medical hospital with her!
Moxie is STILL putting up a fight! And I promised her, Dally, myself, and God that as long as she’s still fighting, we’re still fighting with her!
PRESENT TIME-
Wednesday September 25th
After receiving medical attention and medication She is stable, but more over she is VERY BRIGHT EYED AND ENERGETIC!!
After running a couple scopes, doctors determined..
She currently has two infection masses that are perforating her esophagus, and it appears on the night of choke or somewhere in between her next 3 times following that she choked while at the vets, that at some point she completely ruptured her esophagus, which allowed food, water, and anything running through her esophagus to seep through the point of rupture in her esophagus and down into the tissue of her neck, therefore leading to the infection.
She has thrombosis all the way through her left jugular vein but thankfully still function in her right jugular vein.
we were told she has a 20 or 30% chance, but to me that means NOTHING!
To lead you back to the beginning, the only other heart horse I’ve ever had, my Dally girl, only had a less than 1% chance and she made it another SIX YEARS after getting into a kerfuffle with one of the other horses and flipping a wheelbarrow over and impaling herself 31 inches across her abdomen, from her left knee to her right hip, receiving 3 broken ribs, a busted diaphragm, and 2 different types of infection! It took 5 hours of exploratory surgery, but she was saved by THIS VERY OSU vet hospital! All of that said to say
OUR GOD IS AN AWESOME GOD
HE REIGNS FROM HEAVEN ABOVE
WITH WISDOM, POWER, AND LOVE
OUR GOD IS AN AWESOME GOD
TODAY WE MADE THE CHOICE TO FIGHT YET ANOTHER DAY!!
SO KEEP THOSE PRAYERS COMING!
God is using us, yet again, to be his walking testimony down here and WE’RE HERE FOR IT! Ask me how I KNOW GOD IS REAL AND HE IS RISEN!!
As of present time, I alone, have out of pocketed, over $3,500 in vet bills between the first night at pine ridge to the weeks long stay she had at our normal vets, in order to save our girls life and I’m slowly but surely running out of funds but not faith! I am not seeking to gain back anything I’ve spent absolutely every penny has been worth it, and everything up to this point is 100% paid off, but realistically as a single mom I WILL NEED HELP TO KEEP FIGHTING!
We have been quoted $7,500 for surgery in order to save her life, I put a $1,000 deposit down, (leading us to $4,500 out of pocket presently), to get us started and I can keep going for a little bit longer but I can’t afford the whole $7,500 for surgery!
I have never done this before in my life, but I am BEGGING ANYONE AND EVERYONE, if myself, my kids, or Moxie, have ever touched your life/heart or made an impact on your life in anyway, in or outside of rodeo, IM BEGGING YOU PLEASE HELP US SAVE OUR GIRL! PLEASE!!!
Even if you feel like the only thing you could donate is .50, $1, $5, $10, etc. And you don’t feel like that’s much, I promise you something is better than nothing! PLEASE IF YOU CAN, NO MATTER HOW MUCH, PLEASE DO!!
Or if charity just isn’t your thing, but you have any jobs local to my area that need done, that you would be willing to pay me for, or make a donation to her vet bill for PLEASE NOTIFY ME IMMEDIATELY!! I WILL DROP ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING IN ORDER TO SAVE OUR GIRL!
Lastly, even if you have nothing to offer on any of the levels above, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE SHARE!!! And PLEASE PRAY, shares and prayers COST NOTHING AND THEY WORK!!!!
Below are some pictures, that show what life with our girl normally looks like, transitioning into night of initial choke, into present time.
About me - I am a single mom of 2 kiddos, a 4 year old little girl and 5 year old little boy. I have been riding horses since before I was even their age, and I’m almost 30 now, to say this is my passion would be an understatement, this is my life! I am the sole owner of a 13 year young mare named Moxie. Out of all the horses I’ve rode I’ve only ever had a bond like I have with Moxie, with one other horse named Dally that passed away in my childhood and it really broke my heart loosing her. When I met Moxie I instantly felt that Dally had handpicked her and sent her to me, I had never felt the presence of Dally in another horse the way I could with Moxie, so of course she quickly became part of the family! Moxie is the type you don’t find very often, I can put my kids on her back and she will babysit them all day and then I can hop on and run a 17 second pattern! She has healed that part of me that got so badly broken when I lost Dally, and inspired in my kids the same love for horses and this sport that Dally inspired in me so long ago, and for that I can NEVER repay her but we’re for sure gonna try! This mare is PRICELESS to us!
September 7th, 2024, the night of the incident that leads us here today.
Moxie was tied up to the trailer eating like normal, while we were getting ready to go make a run, when she choked on an alfalfa cube. We immediately sprung into action, and the fellow barrel racing community quickly jumped on deck as well, we had people we’d never met before working from many different angles to help our girl, while we tried to find a vet hospital to get her to. We get her to pine Ridge equine hospital and get her un-choked within under 2 hours from start to finish, and she bounced back quickly, we were sent home with the expectation that she would return to normal within 12 to 24 hours.. but by next day, September 8th, I was calling pine ridge again and telling them that she had had no interest in drinking ANY water at all.. and by this time you are starting to see effects of that in her behavior, we are told to give her some oral banamine for relief of inflammation, thinking that she is probably sore from the choke and just isn’t wanting to drink much. By that evening after giving the oral banamine, we are calling pine ridge again because she STILL hasn’t drank anything..and at this point she’s becoming lethargic… we’re advised to take her to her normal vet on Monday September 9th, When I unload her off the trailer at her normal vet, the urgency is high, at this point she is super lethargic and her neck is super swollen! We immediately draw blood work to see if we can gain any more information about our situation, but blood work is look pretty normal, outside of just being dehydrated, but based off of other signs and symptoms she is showing, we administer a penicillin shot as precaution, because though blood work isn’t showing it, we’re feeling like we’re dealing with more than just post choke complications at this point. We get fluids in her and given the state she’s in we make the executive decision to hospitalize her. By Monday night, things are looking up, she has drank a bucket and a half of water on her own, this gives us hope, but she is not ready to come home until after she has had re-introduction to food and things go smoothly.
Tuesday September 10th, she is re-introduced to senior mash and chokes again… which is not extremely surprising given the restriction the swelling has caused, she un-chokes easy, and things are rolling again! But we’re still feeling like there’s something else wrong, so we run more bloodwork, and her white blood count is slightly elevated this time, indicating that there is indeed infection somewhere, so we start routine antibiotics. The rest of Tuesday goes smoothly, no more chokes and she was successfully eating and drinking on her own, but we are touch and go and we know it, so we’re not ready to bring her home by any means because obviously we don’t want to take steps backwards.
Wednesday September 11th, she ends up choking again… mind you she hasn’t been introduced to ANYTHING dry at all! The restriction is so tight, she’s choking on soaked food, and the more she chokes and has to be tubed, the more inflammation and scar tissue it’s building, we’re in a game of cat chasing tail at this point.. The rest of Wednesday evening goes smoothly, but again, we know that things can change quickly, so we are airing with extreme precaution. The antibiotics are obviously having a positive impact at this point though.
Thursday September 12th, goes smoothly all day, and we’re thinking we’re on the uphill side of this, she’ll probably get to come home soon!
Friday September 13th, the morning feedings go well, and at afternoon feeding she chokes AGAIN… at this point we’re trying not to get discouraged, but Moxie is no longer lethargic and is still showing signs of improvement, despite choking again, so we keep pushing to get her better! The rest of Friday goes really well, and the plan is to pick her up the next day, until she chokes again that evening…
Saturday September 14th comes, the day we’re supposed to get to take her home, and just as we’re about to go get her, she takes us for another wild loop, no choking this time but she had been on 20 mins intervals in the round pin every day, and because this was pickup day, she was out for about 45 mins total because they were cleaning up her stall and everything getting ready for her to come home and doctor goes out to say her goodbyes, because EVERYONE has fallen in love with this mare and is TOTALLY invested! When she goes out to check on her she finds Moxie profusely sweating and running a high fever, so they quickly pull her in and go to work getting her stable, and call me back to say, she stays again. At this point, I’m like please do, just save our girl!! Once they get her stable the rest of Saturday goes smooth.
Sunday September 15th, the whole day goes smooth, no chokes, a mild spike in fever around 12pm but quickly comes back down after cold hose and banamine, so now we’re a go for Monday pick up!
Monday September 16th, the day is FINALLY here, we get to take her home!! There is still a massive amount of swelling, but there has been so much improvement and she is still on antibiotics, we get home, she settles in nicely, you can tell she’s happy to be home, the rest of the day goes super smooth!!
Tuesday September 17th, everything is going smoothly, we’re still showing signs of improvement, signs of swelling going down, and the only problem we are running into Is that around noon her fever is still spiking, but is brought down by cold hose and a dose of banamine. She is eating normal, drinking normal, behaving so much better, still not quite back to normal behaviorally, but not lethargic!
Wednesday September 18th, looks like a repeat of Tuesday, Everything goes super smooth besides the fever peeking around noon, but is still breaking after medication and cold hosing, and we are still seeing signs of improvement all around.
Thursday September 19th, things all look normal in the morning, but by noon, she is crashing, behavior still seems pretty stable, but when her fever spiked at noon, it didn’t come down this time after medication and cold hose, and by this time im getting worried about the quality of her kidney function, because she has had a daily dose of banamine for basically right at two weeks at this point, which isn’t good on their kidneys… so we load her up again and go back to the vets, we do bloodwork again, which pretty much looks like it has, still showing elevated white blood count but shows Improvement, and kidney function looks good so we are good to go back home, and have the go ahead to be able to continue to administer banamine when needed for fever spike without worrying about causing kidney failure. The rest of the evening goes good!
Friday September 20th, things have gone good all day, and a very dear friend offers to come out and do PEMF(electromagnetic wave therapy) on her and we are excited to see what type of improvement it will have! During the therapy session, she feels so good that she is able to lower her head/neck further than she has been able to since night of initial choke, she’s feeling so good during therapy that she almost falls out from underneath herself, falling asleep, and after treatment showed so much relief that she laid down flat in her paddock to rest, and you could tell that this had made night and day difference!! Saturday September 21st, OUR FIRST FEVER FREE, BANAMINE FREE DAY, since initial choke!!!! Today we have showed huge signs of improvement!!! Today we apply ice tight( a clay poultice) to her neck in order to try to draw some of the rest of the swelling out and offer her some more relief! Most of the day we hadn’t seen much change but by 11:30 at night the middle of her neck had started to leak adema, which sounds like a bad thing, but it is exactly what we needed tto happen in order to get that swelling out! Sunday September 22nd, The spot of internal infection we have been treating with antibiotics had finally ruptured the bottom of her neck, again, sounding like things are getting worse, but they are actually getting better, this means that the infection is finally leaving her body!! The rest of the day is VERY full of hope!!
Monday September 23rd, we go back into the vet, so she can get some samples of the infection that has ruptured out her neck in order to see if need to change antibiotics, we run some more blood just to see where we’re at, clean the entire wound all out and flush it, then head back home and wait for results from the swab!
Tuesday, September 24th, the day that leads us to present… when I went to go clean Moxie’s wound out I noticed that she is having an extremely hard time, swallowing or breathing.. meaning the pressure from the infection inside still and the one that finally ruptured through the outside was closing in on her! The air was heavy, and this time the tears were falling, and falling hard.. we know this time things are getting critical and if we don’t get her to the right spot 12 hours, she won’t make it…. Panic is starting to really set in.. we can’t loose her.. my kids and I won’t be okay... She means EVERYTHING to us!! We make the decision to head to OSU Stillwater veterinary medical hospital with her!
Moxie is STILL putting up a fight! And I promised her, Dally, myself, and God that as long as she’s still fighting, we’re still fighting with her!
PRESENT TIME-
Wednesday September 25th
After receiving medical attention and medication She is stable, but more over she is VERY BRIGHT EYED AND ENERGETIC!!
After running a couple scopes, doctors determined..
She currently has two infection masses that are perforating her esophagus, and it appears on the night of choke or somewhere in between her next 3 times following that she choked while at the vets, that at some point she completely ruptured her esophagus, which allowed food, water, and anything running through her esophagus to seep through the point of rupture in her esophagus and down into the tissue of her neck, therefore leading to the infection.
She has thrombosis all the way through her left jugular vein but thankfully still function in her right jugular vein.
we were told she has a 20 or 30% chance, but to me that means NOTHING!
To lead you back to the beginning, the only other heart horse I’ve ever had, my Dally girl, only had a less than 1% chance and she made it another SIX YEARS after getting into a kerfuffle with one of the other horses and flipping a wheelbarrow over and impaling herself 31 inches across her abdomen, from her left knee to her right hip, receiving 3 broken ribs, a busted diaphragm, and 2 different types of infection! It took 5 hours of exploratory surgery, but she was saved by THIS VERY OSU vet hospital! All of that said to say
OUR GOD IS AN AWESOME GOD
HE REIGNS FROM HEAVEN ABOVE
WITH WISDOM, POWER, AND LOVE
OUR GOD IS AN AWESOME GOD
TODAY WE MADE THE CHOICE TO FIGHT YET ANOTHER DAY!!
SO KEEP THOSE PRAYERS COMING!
God is using us, yet again, to be his walking testimony down here and WE’RE HERE FOR IT! Ask me how I KNOW GOD IS REAL AND HE IS RISEN!!
As of present time, I alone, have out of pocketed, over $3,500 in vet bills between the first night at pine ridge to the weeks long stay she had at our normal vets, in order to save our girls life and I’m slowly but surely running out of funds but not faith! I am not seeking to gain back anything I’ve spent absolutely every penny has been worth it, and everything up to this point is 100% paid off, but realistically as a single mom I WILL NEED HELP TO KEEP FIGHTING!
We have been quoted $7,500 for surgery in order to save her life, I put a $1,000 deposit down, (leading us to $4,500 out of pocket presently), to get us started and I can keep going for a little bit longer but I can’t afford the whole $7,500 for surgery!
I have never done this before in my life, but I am BEGGING ANYONE AND EVERYONE, if myself, my kids, or Moxie, have ever touched your life/heart or made an impact on your life in anyway, in or outside of rodeo, IM BEGGING YOU PLEASE HELP US SAVE OUR GIRL! PLEASE!!!
Even if you feel like the only thing you could donate is .50, $1, $5, $10, etc. And you don’t feel like that’s much, I promise you something is better than nothing! PLEASE IF YOU CAN, NO MATTER HOW MUCH, PLEASE DO!!
Or if charity just isn’t your thing, but you have any jobs local to my area that need done, that you would be willing to pay me for, or make a donation to her vet bill for PLEASE NOTIFY ME IMMEDIATELY!! I WILL DROP ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING IN ORDER TO SAVE OUR GIRL!
Lastly, even if you have nothing to offer on any of the levels above, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE SHARE!!! And PLEASE PRAY, shares and prayers COST NOTHING AND THEY WORK!!!!
Below are some pictures, that show what life with our girl normally looks like, transitioning into night of initial choke, into present time.
Organizer
Kellianna Harris
Organizer
Chelsea, OK