Rhea-Hit By Car Stray

Hi, My name is Alexa! Last Friday a good samaritan found a stray laying in front of there house, she was bloody all over the front portion of her body and couldn't move or walk. When she was brought into VMCLI, we couldn't assess her condition because of how painful she was, but she seemed to be young based of her coat and size. From just looking at her you could tell her mouth was in pretty rough shape, we couldn't tell if her nasal passage was involved as well and her left hind leg was doubled in size. The good samaritan couldn't take financial responsibility of this poor baby who we believe got hit by a car judging by her injuries. Knowing that she's younger, and has so much fight in her I couldn't not help Rhea.

We right away gave her pain medication to help with the trauma. We did a fast scan of her chest and belly to make sure there was no free fluid-etc. We placed an IV catheter and started the process of sedation to get some X-rays of her. We got X-rays of her chest stomach leg and jaw to see how severe her trauma was. She had a left tib-fib fracture, that the ER doctor splinted, no other leg injuries. Her chest and stomach looked good, but her jaw was pretty bad. The emergency doctors all made sure she had pain meds, and was comfortable until she saw the dentistry department in the AM. The dentistry team took her to get scans of her jaw to closer see where exactly the fractures are. She has a mandibular fracture on the top and lower jaw, the top fracture is expected to heal by itself, but the fracture on the bottom jaw won't. She has a button splint placed, which will hold her jaw in place to give it the time it needs to heal. Because of the fractures of her jaw Rhea has had a hard time wanting/trying to eat, so while she was under sedation they placed an esophageal feeding tube. This is going to help if she was having a hard time eating, but also able to give her pain meds through it instead of her mouth.

Rhea is 2 days post op after having the button splint placed and has even been starting to eat by herself (with soup like consistency cat food of course) ! Rhea has a long road of recovery in front of her but with me and VMCLI's help she is bound to make a beautiful recovery. Rhea was discharged today, and is going to have weekly rechecks with dentistry department until her button splint is able to come off.

The current invoices for Rheas bills are at a little under 14 thousand, I am making this go fund me in efforts to help me afford this bill. If you or anyone you know can donate anything at all , Rhea and I would appreciate it so much! Rhea didn't deserve to get hit by a car, and making sure she has a wonderful life after this is all I can ask for.