Sweet Farley's Surgery

If you know Zach and I at all, you know we are the last people to start this type of fund, but we have no choice as we have no exhausted all of our resources.

Our sweet baby Farley has fallen very, very sick in the last week.  What begun as coughing was dismissed by our vets as allergies and has now landed him in the ICU on schedule for surgery tomorrow.

Last week we noticed the Farley was coughing.  It was very concerning to us because he would stay up all night and gag after coughing.  We both felt something was wrong but left the vets office with no answers and a puppy that still wasn't feeling well.

At the beginning of this week, Farley began to have mucous in his eyes and also began acting very, very lethargic.  Those of you who know him know he is FULL of energy otherwise.  On Wednesday morning he began struggling to breathe.  Once again, we took him to the vet where he spent all day.  We were dismissed again and told to give him Benadryl and that Bulldogs just "have trouble breathing".

I took Farley home that night, expecting to cuddle with him on the couch and that he would feel better in the morning.  Instead, we got home, he took a drink of water and then stopped breathing.   I administered CPR for 3 minutes before he came back and immediately took him back to the vet, who said that he must have just choked on the water.  The advised us to keep and eye on him and take him to the Emergency Veterinary Center at MU if we became concerned.

Upon arriving home, we tried to take him to bed with us and he, once again, began choking for air.  

Farley is now in the ICU at MU in an oxygen tank with an IV adminstering pain medication.  He has been diagnosed with a congential issue of the stomach which has caused him to regergitate his food.  Because of this, he has tons of tiny tears in his esophagus which has allowed food and water particles to enter his lungs, causing pneumonia.  He will undergo surgery tomorrow morning to repair his stomach and esophagus and to open his airways by elminated his elongated palate.  The cost of this surgery is $5500.  After surgery he will need to breathe through a tube and stay in the hospital for awhile to recover.  He will also live off of a feeding tube for months.

We know that Farley is a dog, but he is not just that to us.  He is our best friend and our baby.  It is absolutely breaking our hearts to see him in so much pain and we cannot live with not trying to save him.  The odds of his survival are very low due to his multi-factor diagnosis so making this post and dealing with that fact is almost unbearable.  But, the fact is...if the outcome is good, or bad, we still have a giant bill waiting for us in the end of which we have no more means to cover. 

Farley is only 6 months old and it breaks our hearts that he has to go through all of this.  We have exhausted all of our options and are asking for any help at all.