Nellie’s Acute Kidney Failure

At 5 years old, Nellie is too much for this world to handle. She has too much bottled-up energy, too much spunk, and too much affection. We don’t know how her little body can handle all that personality. And she can’t either! She pees a little every time she’s excited to see someone (which is everyone). She always presents herself for pets, cuddles, and treats - that’s her job! She has brought smiles to a large community of people, she is a little fluff ball of happiness.

On July 15th, Nellie began vomiting and showing signs of lethargy. Things have changed so suddenly since then and we’re all struggling to process it. Since then, she has been transferred to three different emergency clinics, ending in a highly specialized hospital. We found out her kidneys are failing. Her right kidney has permanent damage and cannot be saved due to an abundance of kidney stones. She is currently fighting to save her left kidney by hopefully passing the pieces of stones lodged in her left ureter (the tube between the kidney and her bladder). But even this is a small chance. She is in a lot of pain but she is receiving the best treatment we can offer her.

July 19th was a particularly hard day, as we thought it would be her last day. She was lethargic and clearly still in a lot of pain, we were all distraught. The next day, however, she showed us all some of that Nellie spunk by whining for breakfast, wagging her tail when she saw us, stealing a toy from a friend, and even peed herself when she saw us again! It was such a beautiful moment to see her personality come back, but we have been told that there are still no guarantees and things could still go downhill.

We all want to help her fight for her life but it’s been a huge financial burden, every day at the hospital is $1200 for fluid treatment and ultrasounds only and she has already been in hospital for over 5 days. Surgery and after-surgery care are an additional $15-20,000 every 3 weeks that may not even be feasible financially for her mom and will be physically taxing for Nellie. We’re hoping to give Nellie as much fluid treatment that she needs so we can avoid surgery. We’re all hoping for the miracle that Nellie passes the stones in her ureter.

This has been a really tough experience for us all and her mom doesn’t want to ask for help because she feels bad for asking, so I’m doing it for her. Many of us around her have been feeling helpless watching Nellie and her mom go through this, which is why I decided to start this GoFundMe page for them! I’m hoping we can get through this together and help this sweet girl in any way we can.

Anything helps and is greatly appreciated!