Urgent Care Needed for Cadence's Recovery

My awesome old man dog, Cadence, is sick and just needs some IV fluids to pull through. But he needs it for at least 3 days.

Cadence will be 13 years young next month and, until a few days ago, still had the energy of a dog half his age. He still goes on long hikes, still jumps down out of the Jeep, and still jumps up onto the couch without any help. His absolute favorite thing to do in the world is try to catch anything that moves in the bushes and rocks; he gets pretty close, too!

He also absolutely loves food. Especially people food. We've never needed to worry about cleaning up dropped food; he won't even let it hit the ground! And we all just learned firsthand how detrimental that can be for a smaller, elderly dog.

Sunday morning around 6 a.m., we were awakened by our younger dog making a strange alerting sound I've never heard her make before. I didn't want to wake up yet, but she did it again. And then again. When I went to investigate, my poor little Cadence-pooh was laying flat on the floor a few feet from the water bowl, like he'd tried to go get a drink and collapsed on the way. He was breathing like it was the most painful experience of his life. He wouldn't lift his head, and he was drooling—so nauseous. I feared the worst and that we were too late, but I went into nurse mode and pulled from knowledge I have from over a decade ago when I worked as a vet tech and was able to give him something to settle his stomach and keep him comfortable long enough to get him to our vet hospital. They got him started on IV fluids and continued with anti-nausea and pain meds, ran some labs, and took his vitals. Severe acute pancreatitis. My boy was in critical condition! And our options were either bleak or expensive, not much middle ground.

My mom has been a vet tech for most of her life (and all of mine), and I had the wonderful opportunity to work as a vet tech with her for a while. Of course, I called my mom right away, and she told me we can fix this! Don't count him out just because of his age; all he needs is some intense support for a few days so the dehydration doesn't ruin his chances of recovery, and he should be back to normal. Our vet confirmed that his prognosis is great with hospitalization, very poor without. So we did it; we're doing it. He's at the vet hospital getting his IV treatment as I type. Everyone in the family has taken a vow to keep any and all people food away from Cadence.

We're now just praying for miracles to pay for tomorrow and the next day. My wonderful children poured out their savings, and we exhausted our emergency fund to pay for yesterday and today, but I don't know what to do about tomorrow and beyond. I'm looking into all options, praying a lot, and giving it to God. I know by His grace a way will be made somehow!