PUPPY WITH SEIZURES NEEDS YOUR HELP FOR TESTING & TREATMENT, $5 CAN SAVE HIS LIFE

On May 26, 2024, Tyr, had his first seizure at only 2 years old, just 10 days after his birthday. It was the first time anyone in my family had ever seen a puppy have a seizure, and it was frightening. He was convulsing, foaming at the mouth, urinating, and screaming. After rushing to the vet, ruling out poisoning and organ failure, we learned all about seizures and their causes.

Dogs can get epilepsy just like people can, and it can be medically controlled in dogs just like it can be in people. And yet when it comes to dogs, idiopathic epilepsy is a common diagnosis given simply because specialized (intracranial) testing is very expensive, and typically far out of the price range of most animal owners. My vet quoted me a $9,000 to $12,000 average cost at the veterinary neurologist near me. And so Tyr was prescribed medicine he was set to be on for the rest of his life. My plan was to save as much as I could over the next couple years to be able to afford that.

In the months that followed, Tyr has continued to have seizures seemingly at random. But most recently, on July 29th, he experienced a cluster seizure, where every few hours he would fall into another one. When a cluster happens, there's no telling when it will stop, and so we had to take him to the ER to get him stable. We did. Then, 29 hours later, he fell into another cluster. Over the course of 2 days he had a total of 12 seizures, and now while on a cocktail of medication, he has been stable at the time of this writing for 3 days.

After calling vet neurologists all around Southern California, I was finally able to find one who quoted me a total price of about $4500 for the fundamental diagnostics (an MRI and spinal tap) that will help reveal what is causing seizures in my puppy. This is 2-3x less than the cost I had been quoted by my primary vet and while it is still a huge cost, it is now an attainable goal through crowdfunding and saving everything my family can.

Every single dollar you donate will help me and my family. Literally every dollar. My dream is that 1000 people see this and donate $5. My dogs are the most important thing in my life and the reason I continue to live.

At best, we will learn what kind of epilepsy he has and how to best control it, or if he has a treatable (but time sensitive) illness like encephalitis. At worst, we will learn that he has an incurable disease and that we did everything we could for him. Please consider donating $5 (or more) to help us and share his story. The sooner we can get this testing done, the sooner we can help him and save his life.

Tyr came into our lives 2 years ago after my family found an abandoned female dog living in a construction yard surviving on discarded hot dogs. Her name was Maisy, and we decided to adopt her because we were blessed to have the space, time and money to take care of her. What we didn't know was that she was pregnant. When she began to show in the month that followed, we found ourselves in a dilemma. Was it unethical to bring more animals into a horribly overcrowded world, and if we did, could we even take care of puppies with no experience ever having done so? Could we find good homes for them?

We decided to try. And when the vet told us they only counted 7 puppies we thought it would be easy to find home for that many. She had 13. I quit my old job to take care of them, and they all survived despite her lack of enough nipples and milk. Despite vaccinations, they caught parvovirus, the puppy killer, twice. I made sure they all lived, by administering subcutaneous fluids, paying for hospitalization, and constant attention/holistic treatment. We found great homes for most, but Tyr decided to stay. By all accounts, he is my family and my purpose for existence. For all that we have been through, I will not fail him in this.