Penny’s emergency surgery after dog attack

Hi, my name is Tiva. I am the owner of Penelope (Penny), our 4 year old chihuahua. 

Penny was recently attacked by a much larger dog. We rushed her to the nearest open vet, Civano Animal hospital, which was about an hour-hour and a half drive. They were able to get her stabilized, on oxygen and pain medication, gave her 2 blood transfusions and performed surgery to repair multiple lacerations to her stomach and abdomen.

Penny was kept at the Civano Animal hospital for 1 week. We drove the 2 1/2 hours there and back after the kids got out of school so they could visit her until we were able to bring her home. This week she had an additional spinal surgery and is once again home with us and doing pretty well. We continue to pray for her as recovery will not be quick or easy. 

Getting up the nerve to create this fundraiser was very difficult for me. For one, I am pretty private and I’m not the type of person to ask for help. Most people that know me would say I’m stubborn and independent. Secondly, a friend recommended a gofundme on Monday and for 4 days I have been reading other peoples fundraisers and my heart breaks for all of them so I’ve trivialized our need in comparison. Third, I harbor a lot of guilt. I beat myself up thinking of all the things I could have, should have done differently. I think these are all things that many of us probably do. But then I think about Penny and how important she is to our family and I think about my 5 children and how I cannot tell them that we couldn’t afford to save her life. So as long as Penny has the fight in her I feel like we have to give her every opportunity to do just that.

Financially I simply cannot afford the cost of the vet bills, honestly I’m not sure how anyone could. The total bill from Civano came to $14,288.52. 

I’d love to say that at 40 years old I have money put aside for an emergency but even with working full time and prior to Covid, working 2 jobs, with 5 kids it just doesn’t always work out like that. We’re doing the best we can and if it means I’m paying this bill off for the remainder of my years then I’ll do that. But this is me, asking for help. Whether it’s put on your heart to help financially, if you happen to know of non profits that help with vet bills and can share our story, share this post or to just keep us in your prayers, I am grateful. Thank you.