I came home from my doctor’s appointment on Monday January 13th to discover Nymeria having stomach spasms, difficulty breathing, and with no energy. We rushed her to the emergency veterinarian and they informed us that if we were even five minutes later Nymeria would’ve stopped breathing. The vet found that her chest cavity was filled with air and the pressure was crushing her lungs causing them to not be able to inflate. She was given emergency oxygen and two unilateral thoracocentesis treatments, where her chest was stabbed with a needle and the excess air drained. She was diagnosed with severe pneumothorax and multiple ultrasounds and X-rays were performed to identify the underlying cause, but the results were inconclusive.

The doctor said the most likely case is that there are bulla on her lungs that have burst causing air to leak from the lungs into the chest cavity. Nymeria stayed overnight at the emergency vet for additional monitoring and she received 24-hour care. I received a call in the middle of the night informing me that she was having trouble breathing again and that her chest cavity had refilled with air and that she needed another thoracocentesis treatment in order to survive. It was performed and the doctor informed me that this meant her condition was not improving and that the next step would be a computerized tomography (CT) scan to identify the specific locations of the ruptured bulla.

She would need to be put under anesthesia for the test and even if the ruptured bulla were identified, the emergency veterinarians were not qualified to perform the procedure, so she would need to recover for a day from the anesthesia, and then be transferred to another facility for the surgery and administered anesthesia for a second time. She would then need to be transferred back immediately after the surgery to the 24-hour emergency care vet because the specialty surgeon is not a 24-hour care location. The additional trauma, transfers, and anesthesia couple with an invasive surgery meant that her chances of survival were dismal.

The doctors recommended the North Carolina State College of Veterinary Sciences as they are one of the most advanced vet centers in the country and that they have the specialists available to perform Nymeria’s surgery. Additionally Nymeria would only need to be put under anesthesia only once because they can perform the CT scan and immediately perform the surgery afterwards which would help improve the chance of success. She would also not have to be transferred after the surgery because they are a 24-7 care center and she would have a better chance of recovering along with having the same team of doctors for the whole duration of her procedure and recovery.

Alex and I discharged Nymeria on Tuesday from the emergency vet and we were given emergency oxygen so we could transfer Nymeria to North Carolina State for further treatment. I drove for over 3 hours while Alex was in the backseat with Nymeria holding her so she could monitor her and administer oxygen as needed. We arrived at North Carolina State and the nurse rushed Nymeria into the hospital and after less than five minutes Nymeria collapsed and stopped breathing. The doctors performed CPR on her and thankfully brought her back. Her chest cavity had filled again with air and began crushing her lungs.

After she was resuscitated, the doctors performed another thoracocentesis treatment on each side of her chest and installed bilateral chest tubes so that air could be constantly drained from her chest. She was hooked up to oxygen support and given a sedative. Unfortunately her chest suffered trauma from receiving CPR and Nymeria would need a couple days to recover before the CT scan in order to ensure that the results would be accurate and conclusive. Alex and I decided to stay the night in North Carolina so that we could check on Nymeria in the morning.

Wednesday morning Nymeria is finally stable and recovering from CPR. The doctors said that we were able to go back home to Virginia, as much as we didn’t want to, and that Nymeria would be recovering for the remainder of the day and Thursday.

Thursday Nymeria’s blood oxygen levels dropped, but overall she is still recovering and on track for the CT scan and surgery on Friday. The surgical method will depend on the results of the CT scan. Best-case conclusive results with few ruptured bulla may be able to be alleviated with localized incisions and blood transfusions to the ruptured lung points can patch the holes with 80-90% success rate. A larger number of ruptured bulla may require that a portion of her lungs be removed, which has a lower chance of success. Inconclusive results will require her to have her chest sliced open down the middle and have an exploratory surgery performed to identify the ruptured bulla prior to treatment. This is obviously much more invasive, has a lower chance of success, and a longer recovery time when she gets back home. It is anticipated that regardless she will need an additional 3-5 days of monitoring and treatment after the surgery before she is cleared to return home.

The emergency vet services in Virginia Beach costed $4,200 which drained most of my savings. The treatment, evaluation, and stay at North Carolina State for Nymeria costed an additional $10,000. This does NOT include surgery. Surgery is estimated to cost an additional $5,000-7,000. I opened an additional line of credit and was approved for $9,000. I maxed out the additional line of credit and used my last $1,000 in savings to cover the initial treatment of $10,000 at North Carolina State. I plan to max out my regular credit card to cover the surgery, but this will leave me with no savings, and approximately $15,000 of debt. The minimum payments are around $1,000 each month and I will also need to take a significant amount of time off work to care for Nymeria for two months after she returns from the surgery, in addition to paying for multiple vet visits post-recovery. The total cost for treatment is totaled at roughly $20,000 not including post-recovery visits. I’m setting the goal at half of that for $10,000. This will allow us to pay down a portion of the initial debt and take adequate time off work to care for Nymeria so that she can fully recover and enjoy life again. Thank you so much for reading and I hope you take the time to share and support Nymeria during this horrific time. She is an amazing puppy and is full of love and she deserves only the best, no matter what the cost is.