Help Zola Heal from Her Traumatic Injury

Hello, recently our 2.5 year old whippet mix, Zola, went through a traumatic injury that left her nearly dead and on a long road to recover.

On March 19th, 2025 she flushed some deer while on a regular walk with my husband and me. She ended up giving chase and somehow impaled herself on a branch. We rushed her to the ER to perform emergency surgery to close a wound and explore the pocket left by the stick. Unbeknownst to us the initial pass did not detect the stick still inside her body.

After bringing her home on the 20th we realized something wasn't right as she was getting worse not better. We returned to the vet the early morning of the 21st and further x-rays and ultrasounds showed her entire chest cavity was filling with fluid.

She was rushed to Tufts after this and put into another emergency surgery. This time they had to cut through her sternum, ribs, and abdomen to remove a 6 inch stick that was inside her chest cavity. Inside they found infection, pus, and the stick. The stick pierced through part of her right lung, her pericardium (protective heart covering) and went through her diaphragm to rest against her liver.

At this point they had to open her entire abdomen to lavage all her organs in both her chest and abdomen and check for perforations of her intestines. Part of her right lung was removed as well as a portion of the pericardium. She had the hole in her diaphragm closed also.

After all this she had to have a blood transfusion and be put on every drug known to canine kind. She was put on an epidural and given a chest port and abdominal port for drainage.

After several days in the ICU we were able to bring her home on the 25th. She has been recovering since then.

All this being said, it decimated our life savings and emergency funds. We would spend anything to give her a good quality of life, especially being so young. While we have paid our over $15,000 bills we could really use the help to regain some of those savings for emergencies.

Anything helps. Thank you so much if you've read this far. Much love to all ❤️! If we SOMEHOW break the 10-15K range any extra funds will go to the rescue group we adopted her from.