Hey!
I never thought I’d have to do anything like this.
Lyra is the absolute light of my life. She’s gone through an horrific accident and it’s a really difficult time.
I’m on the spectrum have some mental health issues, and Lyra has been trained in recognising when things are difficult for me, so since she we’ve found one another we’ve just flourished together and we’re both so happy. Lyra is with me all the time and we have navigated life together for 2.5 years and it’s changed my life. — trying really hard to not make this sound like a sob story; I’m just wanting to put colour to our relationship and also, I know it will resonate with so many who are so bonded with their dogs.
lyra was unfortunately impaled by a spear-headed rusty wrought iron-fence in a public area which seems to have surpassed the park warden/council’s awareness. It removed the top part of her leg around her elbow joint down to the ligament and bone. She was then stuck at the bottom of the gorge bleeding horrendously and was a critical situation, but with a miraculous effort from my boyfriend who carried her whilst bleeding-out up Bristol Gorge and a friend ready with a car we managed to get her in as an emergency.
we were relieved to hear that they could perform a difficult but incredible surgery of stitching and knitting the corresponding muscle and stitched together the skin. Unfortunately bacteria ate away the skin and it died quickly. This meant she had to have the surrounding skin moved, including the skin bed so it’s just the open muscle which was stitched together. This includes daily flushes; but she has to go under anaesthetic to do this work.
The next healing stage is to grow a skin-bed in order for the skin to to attach to to cover the open wound (it’s huge), the complications so far is that in order for the skin to form means we have to keep her still, and keep her still for months— to do this atm she is sedated on a lot of drugs constantly, and it’s on the joint so moving it messes up the process. We understand after her 5th surgery today that the skin is growing inward so not into the skin bed so they’ve had to remove the skin that made any progress all over again.
the vets have been really amazing and advised this is months of no movement and constant surveillance. We’ll be in there most days of the week. there is no end date they can give usand no reassurance at present that the leg can be ok, but we will give it everything we’ve got.
we have great insurance, but after the 5 surgeries, almost daily visits, drugs, etc, we’re just about to hit our limit, I have a little saved up that I’m going to chuck at it— and will get whatever loan I can if it means I can do everything possible— all of my friends have pretty much said to start a go fund me for people that would like to help.
please feel free to make a donation, otherwise, please email us for a sloclo T-shirt so we can give you something for your contribution and put the money towards Lyras surgeries and procedures.
Because we don’t *know* exactly the costs as there’s no actual one procedure just lots of trial and error— atm it’s been hundreds a week in checking the skin, the skin bed, the muscle, and changing the dressing, etc. It’s £140 to do under an opioid a time and £400 a time to do under GA. she has to have any skin cut back again that hasn’t grown on top of the skin-bed. given that the wound is so large and fresh within a week £3.5k insurance has basically gone in an instant. And we have months of trial and error.
we are estimating the lowest amount so far with the current processes with her treatment to be around £5-£6k.
If this does not work, we will then have a couple of options to consider. A skin graft taken from her chest, or, the most extreme one, a skin stretching procedure at a hospital not in Bristol as an inpatient where it’s treatments every 4 hours, this will be £8-10K+. The quotes for this can get well into 5 figures. Every time we get a more concrete figure from the vets we will amend the goal up or down to manage this as much as possible.
The photos are incredibly grim, but if you’d like to see those and see the amazing science behind the whole thing, Gimmie a message. Xx
all of our love, and thank you for your supportxxxxx
If in the best case scenario if we will not be needing the amount of money of the goal and we get there we ofc will refund people or give the opportunity for their donations to go to other dog charities. — all receipts etc can be asked for :)
many thanks again xx