Help Cover Lola's Medical Bills

Please read the update below.

Hi! I'm Angela, Lola's mom. At nearly 15 years old, Lola has lived a good, happy, pampered life. She's everyone's favorite dog (even the people who already have their own dogs) and the unofficial Mayor and mascot of our apartment complex, where we've lived for 12 years.

She's on a number of pills; something for her blood pressure, urinary health, arthritis, coughing, and acid reflux. She's overweight. She's an old lady. But she is SO loved by SO many people.

She's had health scares in the past, but nothing like she's been through in the last week.

It started Wednesday, April 23rd, with a cough and some dry-heaves, then progressed into labored breathing with her head and tail down. We knew something wasn't right. We took her to a new (to us) emergency vet at around midnight and they went to work on diagnosing the problem. She went through blood draws, two ultrasounds, x-rays, and she was given ALL the pain meds.

First, she has pancreatitis (inflammation of her pancreas). As we all know from biology class, the pancreas produces compounds that help us digest our food, including insulin. It's nestled right underneath the stomach, and it's apparently very sensitive. No real reason was found that could explain it, except...

Second, she had a bezoar (like a hair ball but grosser) lodged in her stomach and potentially blocking the entrance to her small intestine. This one was huge, and because of its shape and the way it was positioned, it needed to come out immediately, either through endoscopy or through surgery. It might be the cause of the pancreatitis, since it has ducts that empty just below where the stomach and small intestine meet; they could have been blocked, starting this snowball effect.

We got her settled in at the vet and came home at 8am, scoring a whopping 3 hours of sleep, then went back to see her later that afternoon.

We opted for endoscopy (with the option to convert to surgery) because that seemed like it was the easiest and least invasive thing to do, for her and for us. It was terrifying. We watched the whole thing. Because of her comorbidities, it was risky to begin with, but we gave them permission and they anesthetized her around midnight (24 hours after bringing her in). The procedure as it was took about an hour, but the entire procedure wasn't performed.

After the bezoar was removed, her heart rate spiked to 230 bpm and the anesthesiologist made the call to wake her up right away. The second portion of the endoscopy was to go back down and make sure everything was clear and to remove the gas they inflated her stomach with, but they couldn't do that awake. Poor thing had to expel all that gas on her own!

She came home Friday afternoon after the vet got her to eat something and gave her the all-clear. We had to do diapers and pee pads for a couple of days, but with her medication and some TLC, things were looking up.

Sunday was good, and she'd been improving steadily. Yesterday, she was playing with her friends and talking to everybody she saw and played with toys and had almost normal poop. We got our girl back!!

Well...

This morning, April 30th, she turned her nose up at breakfast and treats. She started that awful wheezing breathing, head and tail down, and was unsteady on her feet. I let her out behind our building and she did pee a couple times and then went meandering off into the woods. I could see her but she wasn't listening to me calling her back. She turned around to finally come my way, and her back legs went out. Then of course her front end followed, and she just put her head down in the leaves like, "Ok, I guess this is where I live now."

I called for Pete to come help, and I carried her back to the porch. She doesn't like getting picked up, but she didn't put up any resistance. We got ourselves ready and headed back to the ER. That was at about 10:30 am or so.

Back at the ER, blood draws, ultrasounds, x-rays all over again. No sign of lung or heart or gut issues there, so yay, small win.

Her temperature was dangerously high -- 106℉ -- so they immediately worked on cooling her down and getting an IV started. They did another mini-ultrasound to check for fluid in her chest or abdomen, and everything looked pretty normal. Her bloodwork was mostly normal, except her white blood cells were incredibly low. This is indicative of sepsis.

Doc says he doesn't know where or how the infection started. His best guess is that it's some sort of pneumonia, but her lungs looked pretty clear on x-ray, though it may be too early in the disease to see it. We're going ahead with IV antibiotics, and she's spending the night in the oxygen tank to help her breathe easier.

Needless to say, all this has cost a pretty penny. She's 100% worth it -- every damn cent -- but our finances have taken a severe beating. We would be eternally grateful if all the people who love her (and that's a lot!) donate just a little to help us out.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts, and Lola says "arf-arf!"

Here's a breakdown:

4/24: $1,515.05

+$2,599.00

+$4,528.87

4/30: $1,646.50

+$5,116.12

Grand total: $15.405.54