Somehow, this very morning, Dragon Tattoo, our beautiful Scottish Deerhound suffered an ugly and painful compound fracture of the left tibia while rough-housing with the other dogs. After several panic-stricken minutes we got her in the house, and lying down. We then had to figure out how to get her to the car, and then to the vet more than 10 miles away. Fortunately, we were able to contact our friend, Sherry, who's the tech at our vet clinic. She was just leaving for work and stopped at the clinic to pick up a stretcher and drove out to the house to help us move Tattoo to the car, and then into the clinic.
This, of course, was only half the process, because our local vet, a very good vet to be sure, and did a fine job doing X-Rays and stabilizing the injury, does not do orthopedic surgery. But she will have to be paid. How much, we're not sure right now, but *hundreds* is likely.
The orthopedic end of the process will happen up in Silver City, New Mexico by a vet recommended by both our vet, and our friend, Dutch Salmon whose wonderful hound, Archie, had a successful repair there. On the positive side, the Silver City vet is not a "specialist", but has made it his mission to *be* the go-to orthopedic guy in Luna-Grant-Hidalgo Counties because no one else was doing it. His reputation is excellent, and he enjoys orthopedic work. Were he a *real* "specialist" we would be soliciting thousands of dollars rather than $750.
So, where we stand today is Tattoo is resting this evening 60 miles away in Silver City awaiting the arrival of the magic screws that hold the magic plate in place. The estimate for this portion is $800-$1000. I know. If you're living in Chicago or Los Angeles or Phoenix or New York you're sputtering, thinking this should be $2-3000.
So, why are we looking for less than the estimated amounts.. about *half* in fact? Well, some of our friends have already come through with generous donations via other means than gofundme. Thanks, you guys. And we don't expect others to carry 100% of our expenses without paying whatever *we* can.
Normally, we'd have just used our CareCredit account for this, but it seems this dog, this *very* Dragon Tattoo helped max that out just last Spring when she spent an expensive night at the emergency clinic having surgery for bloat and torsion. The rest of the balance was used up a year before that by the previous "money pit" dog, Rally.
So, even though our used book store business is doing well, it only does well enough to pay its own bills, plus buy some groceries and gas and other necessities, and occasional nights out... Social Security (yeah, we're that old) goes toward the other household expenses. The unexpected emergency vet bills are just damn hard to cope with. I never would have considered doing this "gofundme" thing had not several of my Facebook friends recommended it. Hope you can help with whatever amount you feel is appropriate.
Rest assured that if the target amount is exceeded there's more than enough past vet charges to throw the money at, and the money will be used for *only* vet charges. Thanks again, everyone.
I'll throw some premiums in to make it fun, like they do at PBS...
This, of course, was only half the process, because our local vet, a very good vet to be sure, and did a fine job doing X-Rays and stabilizing the injury, does not do orthopedic surgery. But she will have to be paid. How much, we're not sure right now, but *hundreds* is likely.
The orthopedic end of the process will happen up in Silver City, New Mexico by a vet recommended by both our vet, and our friend, Dutch Salmon whose wonderful hound, Archie, had a successful repair there. On the positive side, the Silver City vet is not a "specialist", but has made it his mission to *be* the go-to orthopedic guy in Luna-Grant-Hidalgo Counties because no one else was doing it. His reputation is excellent, and he enjoys orthopedic work. Were he a *real* "specialist" we would be soliciting thousands of dollars rather than $750.
So, where we stand today is Tattoo is resting this evening 60 miles away in Silver City awaiting the arrival of the magic screws that hold the magic plate in place. The estimate for this portion is $800-$1000. I know. If you're living in Chicago or Los Angeles or Phoenix or New York you're sputtering, thinking this should be $2-3000.
So, why are we looking for less than the estimated amounts.. about *half* in fact? Well, some of our friends have already come through with generous donations via other means than gofundme. Thanks, you guys. And we don't expect others to carry 100% of our expenses without paying whatever *we* can.
Normally, we'd have just used our CareCredit account for this, but it seems this dog, this *very* Dragon Tattoo helped max that out just last Spring when she spent an expensive night at the emergency clinic having surgery for bloat and torsion. The rest of the balance was used up a year before that by the previous "money pit" dog, Rally.
So, even though our used book store business is doing well, it only does well enough to pay its own bills, plus buy some groceries and gas and other necessities, and occasional nights out... Social Security (yeah, we're that old) goes toward the other household expenses. The unexpected emergency vet bills are just damn hard to cope with. I never would have considered doing this "gofundme" thing had not several of my Facebook friends recommended it. Hope you can help with whatever amount you feel is appropriate.
Rest assured that if the target amount is exceeded there's more than enough past vet charges to throw the money at, and the money will be used for *only* vet charges. Thanks again, everyone.
I'll throw some premiums in to make it fun, like they do at PBS...