The Fight for Lucky

As I write, our little dog Lucky is at the vet, having had X-rays earlier today.  It's been a while since I mentioned Lucky, but his issues have not gone away and in fact have gotten worse.

After conducting a liver bile acids test, our vet is convinced that Lucky has a liver shunt: that means that the blood vessels that carried blood away from his liver to his mother's liver while he was in utero failed to close after he was born, so his blood is not getting to his liver properly to be cleaned. This is causing pretty much all the problems he has been experiencing:  lowered immune function, protein elimination problems, wasting, the seizures, and now abdominal bloating as fluids leak from the liver and possibly intestines because of the protein imbalance.  (That's why he was getting X-rays.)

It's all very complicated.  The upshot is that  he needs surgery to fix the shunt. The surgery could kill him, as it is long and complicated and he is weak.  But he will certainly die without it, as his condition continues to worsen. It has to be done by a specialist and will cost an estimated $2500 to $3000.

Obviously, that's money I don't have.

Yesterday I started a Go Fund Me campaign to try to raise part of the money.  My Facebook friends have been sweet, and so far we've raised $145.  Not bad for one day.  I'm hoping as friends share with friends we can continue to get that up to at least $500.  I'm going to sell a few things around the house to try to get it up to $1000.

The vet is reluctant to give me a firm timeline, but based on the rate at which Lucky's condition is deteriorating, he said in 4 weeks, Lucks could be beyond help, so we need to get him into surgery as soon as possible, if we want to increase his odds. He gets weaker with every passing day, and the more depleted he becomes, the harder it will be for him to withstand the surgery.

Whatever happens, I tell myself, he has been and continues to be loved.  Whatever happens, he's had more life and a healthier life than he would have without us, because me and my family have been willing to pour money into him to keep his little furry head above water all these months.


But we have had him less than a year.  And he's only a year and a half old.  It's not fair.

I don't want him to die.  I don't want to have to hold him and say goodbye, and I don't want to let that little personality go because I failed him.  But I don't know if I can keep that from happening.  There's a sad little part of my heart that fears Lucky was never meant to be long in this world: that he's had a date with death since the beginning, and I've just barely been keeping it at bay.  But he's also been a trooper, and resilient.  I don't think he's giving up yet, and I'm not giving up on him.