Murphy’s neurological costs

Hello hello! Long post, but please read if you are able to get through it all. I’m a little nervous to be posting about this and asking for help… but my boy really needs it. My name is Meg and this is Murphy! He is my 8.5 year old assistance dog. He helps me with PTSD and mobility issues and he saved my life and vice versa back on November 8, 2016, the day he came home to me forever.

Recently, we noticed he had a slight head tilt and thought he may just have an ear infection or allergies that were bothering his ears. We noticed about a day later that he hadn’t eaten in about 3 days, it’s typical of him to be finicky and go a day or 2 without touching his food, but this was different. About 4 or 5 days later he still wasn’t eating. We had a friends dog staying with us and figured Murphy wasn’t eating due to stress, which is also very normal for him. He was a healthy 93 lbs about two months ago. On thursday night, one week ago, he began losing stability and experiencing clear weakness in his back end and seemed to be falling to the right. When he was not able to hop on the bed, I knew something was very wrong.

I took him in the following morning and right off the bat my vet noticed that he had right sided facial paralysis, affecting his right ear, right eye, and the entire right side of his facial muscles. He had lost about 11 pounds, weighing in at 82 pounds. He also has delayed responses in his hind legs. No ear infection… this last week he has begun having more intense and frequent episodes of seizure like behavior and symptoms, as well as falling over to his right side.

I’m desperate to find him help, we visited a neurologist in the ER at AVES and he unfortunately needs testing that includes hospitalization, sedation, MRI, spinal tap, and analysis resulting in costs of $4100-$5100. Currently, we opted for effective nausea meds to see if his lack of eating was due to the facial paralysis and difficulty eating or nausea from the eye movements (vertical and horizontal nystagmus).

I’m asking anyone if they would be able to help and share this post, please. Any little penny is so appreciated and if we can save his life or at least know what’s going on with him, I can make a fair choice for his health, happiness, and overall quality of life. I can’t make a decision for him until I know WHY I have to make that decision, as long as he isn’t suffering.

Again, I appreciate absolutely anything that can be donated to aid in the costs of his medical bills. Thank you so much for sticking around, this was a long post lol. Attached is the estimate from the vet.