Knight's Medical Bills

Hi! My name is Knight and I’m a 2 year old Pembroke Welsh Corgi and Service Dog for my dad. Unfortunately, I’m having some health problems and my dad won’t let me work in public anymore. My dad needs help to get me the testing and care that I need for my family and veterinary team to better understand what’s wrong and how to help. Any amount of support helps, whether you’re able to donate or just share this page. Here's my story:

In November of 2022, my family started noticing that something weird was happening with my tongue and eyes. My eyelids wouldn’t blink properly, which Dad says makes me look “like an alien” and my tongue would fold up at the tip and I couldn’t seem to get it right on my own. I started slobbering and drooling a lot because I was having trouble getting my tongue to work. This continued to get worse and my tongue continued to fold farther back in my mouth and I was struggling more to get it to work properly. Dad made an appointment with my doctor and she said she had never seen anything like it before. Between her, her colleagues, and my family, we found a few articles and case studies on similar symptoms, but none of them matched completely. My doctor recommended a special surgery to examine my tongue, muscles in my mouth and throat, and teeth. They found that one side of my tongue was much thinner than the other side - as thin as a piece of paper in certain places. Because they had no idea what the cause may be, they referred us to Ohio State University Veterinary Hospital. Who, after a (very expensive) 3 hour appointment…..also had no real answers. They wanted to start me on some pretty risky medications that would make me feel really bad and not like my friends anymore. My family didn’t like that idea and wanted some more answers before we went down that path, so our primary care vet recommended we try MedVet Columbus with a brain specialist team.

We saw MedVet for the first time in April 2023 and they had more answers! But not many without more testing….which is very expensive. Without that testing, they can only go with a generalized guess that I have some sort of myopathy, but they’re not sure what kind or the exact treatment needed. So we decided to do what we could for the time being. They decided to put me on some medication that was much better than the ones OSU was recommending (but I still don’t like taking pills twice a day…) and that was all we could do for the time while we looked at other resources for testing. We stayed on that path for a long time, and while Dad and my doctors still noticed some progressive muscle loss - mostly in my head and throat - it was slow and I was still happy and playful, which is what mattered to Dad. Dad applied to all sorts of charities to try to help get funding for the specialty testing I need. Unfortunately, most of the charities won’t help with diagnostic testing and a lot of them are geared towards helping with cancer, so we got denied by all of them. Dad and my care team tried to see if they could find cheaper places for the testing, but they found that it was so specialized that only the big places like OSU and MedVet have the capability and equipment in our area.

In January of 2024, a little over a year from when this all started, my family started noticing I was limping on my front left leg. I tried to show them that I didn’t mind and I still wanted to play, but they were concerned. Dad tried to get me to rest in my crate to see if it would get better, but I just felt worse when I laid around for a long time. My joints would pop when I moved and my limp seemed to be getting worse. Dad scheduled a follow up with my MedVet team including my brain doctor and a bone doctor too. They found muscle loss around my shoulder and swelling that was causing pain, no matter how brave of a face I put on. Dad and my care team decided that we would try some more medications to help and Dad would take me to my primary care vet for some x-rays because they would be more affordable there. But I can see Dad getting worried because I know our special credit card is running out of available money and he just wants to do what’s best for me and to get to the bottom of all this so that I can be the happy and playful slobbery doggo that my family loves.

So here we are, out of options and holding on to hope. We’re not sure if the testing will even tell us much more, but it’s the only other option we have to find out what’s wrong with me. It’s hard to tell if the medication is helping and Dad is worried about how quickly my condition is progressing. We all want answers, which means that Dad has to ask for help. So that’s my story…the rest is up to you. Please share and donate if you're able to. Dad, my family, and I all would appreciate it very much.

Love,

@knight_the_corgi on Insta