Give Diesel a Chance to Heal

As most of the people who are friends with me on Facebook know, we have experienced a medical emergency for our younger dog, Diesel, that started presenting itself late Sunday night/early Monday morning. He started having very labored breathing and was super anxious and pacing a lot. By Tuesday, it wasn’t getting any better, so off to our vet we went, where we learned he had a collapsed right lung. They are a great facility but are only a clinic and so not set up for that sort of issue.

We were referred to a specialist at an Animal Hospital about 80 miles from our house. So off we went. They quoted us almost $3,000 just to diagnose him and said they would need to admit him. We wanted to give him a chance because other than the breathing issue and extra pacing, he was completely normal.

Long story short, his lung collapsed due to a bullae (air bubble that forms on the lung tissue) rupturing. They had to put in a chest tube and were able to chemically repair the hole. Thank God, no surgery. Currently, they are shooting to take the chest tube out tomorrow (2/28/2025) and discharge him the following day.

With all that being said, we were not expecting this expense. As it sits as of about 2:30 pm on 2/26/2025, his bill is almost at $4,000. They are still going to have him for 2 full days and are going to do another chest x-ray before they remove the tube; those things are not included in his current bill. He will also be on oral antibiotics and anti-inflammatories once he is home for some length of time, also not in the current total.

We are not poor by any means, but at the same time, we are not extremely wealthy either, and this has the potential to really mess up our financial stability for a long while. We are hoping some of our friends, family, loved ones, and maybe even some complete strangers would be willing to donate anything they can so we don’t have to be stressed out to the extreme going forward.