Help our baby Lilah beat Aspergillosis

Introduction/Summary:

Hello, our puppy Lilah is a very happy playful 10 months old chocolate lab. She was recently diagnosed with a fungal infection in her nose called Aspergillosis

. This is a vicious disease that results in many invasive treatments under anesthesia. This fungus is very rare and extremely dangerous. It is found in vegetation (wet/old leaves for example). The fungus is aggressive and if not treated right away the less a chance of survival she has. She has now had it for 2 and a half months. We need to start treatment right away, any size donation helps!! It could save her life. We want to save our baby.

UPDATE: MARCH 27th 2024

we dropped our baby off at the Mississauga Oakville Veterinary Hospital this morning at 8:00 am. She is having her first infusion treatment done (infusion treatment consists of being put under heavy anesthesia and inserting anti fungal cream being inserted into her nose and then they insert catheter balloons into each nostril and they inflate them, while they are inflated she lays on her stomach 1 hours, then they rotate her to her side 1 hour, the other side 1 hour and back for 1 hour). The goal of this treatment is to get all of the anti fungal solution to cover all the population of the fungus! She will be so congested the next few days and apparently it’s quite messy. I feel absolutely awful about this. We had to pay a deposit of $2000.00 this morning and another $1500.00 will be coming out when we pick her up this evening. It’s roughly $3400.00 that is if all goes as planned. We have expired our emergency funds and savings and we cannot provide any further. We are so scared for her and really need help!! Anything helps, anything at all! We will post pictures and update as we are contacted by the internal medicine specialist!!! Thank you so much to those who share this or donate! You have no idea how much this means, from the bottom of my heart! Thank you.

Lilahs Story:

She started showing signs of the infection in October. She had extreme nasal discharge in one nostril. Accompanied by swelling and sneezing.

we took her to the vet and they assumed it was a blockage. She likely inhaled something and it is stuck in her nostril thus causing the infection. They suggested a referral to have a scope done to see what was in there and to remove it. They gave us antibiotics (claveseptin) which failed as well as nasal drops to help with inflammation. She seemed to be getting worse. We had many vet visits with this practice, I had even mentioned the fungal infection(I went down a rabbit hole online looking up symptoms). The vet said it was highly unlikely and continued to stand by the scope being done. Once the referred clinic reached out they said they want to do a CT instead. We couldn’t afford that so we figured well we don’t want to jump to that right away if we have no clue what it is. I wanted to test for it somehow. So we asked another vet and they too said it was a blockage and that they had never heard of the fungus we mentioned. They had Lilah go under anesthesia and did a nasal flush as well as a dental x-ray. The X-ray showed a circle inside her nasal cavity and they did an after photo of her nose after the rinse and it was just the outline of the circle. I guess maybe a cyst that had drained. I then looked up ball in dogs nose x-ray. That’s when I found the word Fungal Ball and I knew right away she had Aspergillosis. We had seen 2 vets at the clinic twice and neither could help us. They booked a date with a referred clinic for the scope. They then changed the day and move it up to the Wednesday instead of Thursday, they left a voicemail (which I didn’t receive) so we missed the scope. This specialist was unable to preform another for another month. We didn’t want to wait any longer! I reached out to an emergency clinic and they said they can do the scope however they rather do a CT at triple the cost due to it being emergency. We were stuck again.

That week, Lilah had a sneeze attack and sneezed out a ball of something. We immediately took it to the vet to have it sent out for testing. The vet was sceptical that it came out of her nose and thought maybe it was a chewed up piece of kibble from her mouth. I then mentioned Aspergillosis again and she wrote down the fungus in front of me. She had no clue what it was. They sent out the culture for testing which was $300.00 it came back positive for fungus. The vet then said, the internal medicine specialists are 95% sure it’s aspergillosis with their experience however the culture doesn’t give exact fungus. If we wanted to know the exact one we needed to pay another $230 to verify it is aspergillosis or they can treat it as though it is that fungus she has. On Friday January 12th at 9 am Lilah went under anesthesia for a CT scan. We will have the results in the next few days to see if the fungus has spread or if it is localized. Our bill from that morning alone was $3200.00 We have now spent over $8000 in vet bills that have helped a total amount of 0% and we haven’t even begun treatment. Treatment is very expensive and we will need multiple. I had a quote from 14,000-16,000 (that’s including the 6000.00). These treatments may continue for months or even years. She may also require anti-fungal meds which are very expensive. For now we are praying the procedures under anesthesia will help.

we understand that a pet is an investment and we should have gotten her insurance the day we brought her home however we didn’t anticipate this happening. It happened so fast we had no clue it was such a deadly disease. We thought maybe she just had a piece of grass in her nose.

we’re awaiting the treatment plan currently and would greatly appreciate any donations to help us and our sweet baby Lilah while she goes through treatments and gets the help she needs!

Thank you in advance for any donations made!!! We greatly appreciate it! ❤️❤️❤️