Fendi's Surgery

TLDR; Fendi ate hair and plastic, got stuck in her. A stressful 2 days with expensive vet surgery bills. We're reaching out to all those that can contribute.
We hope reading our experience helps you be be prepared and well organized. 

Update: Its been a very stressful week for us. Fendi has 17 staples, and the vet hit us with another bill when releasing her for around 1,700. But we wont raise the goal and we want to say that we appreciate all of you so much, especially those that share this post with others, it shows as much care as donating. Again, thank you to all of you for the financial help, you have guys have helped reduce our stress sooo much and made us feel loved, and not alone. We hope we can repay the favor one day.

As pet owners, we all know how scary it is when our babies are sick. The hard part is that they can’t just tell us “Mommy, Daddy, I need to go to the doctor, I don’t feel well.” It hurts to watch them suffer in silence. Our rescue Pitbull Fendi came into our lives at separate times when we both were struggling with hardships. Our beautiful bundle of happy love made our whole world so much brighter. She filled a hole in our hearts that nothing else could, so when we saw her sick and not behaving in her usual manner. We, as any pet parents would, rushed her to the emergency room.

We love our Fendi, she is a spoiled-with-kisses 10 (11 in two weeks) year old rescue from NYC who has been with us for 9 years. She is recovering from Gastrointestinal Surgery now from eating a piece of plastic and some hair that combined to a deadly blockage. 

On Saturday she began throwing up her food and we found a clump of hair in her food, we thought the worse was over and she was recovering. We had made an appointment with her vet for Tuesday for x-rays and blood work. Unfortunately it started to get worse, she wasn't being the happy girl that gives everyone kisses and is always smiling, even in her sleep! She became depressed, lethargic, drooling, not eating, barely drinking, and then started throwing up clear bile with slight foam. We gave her Pepcid but it didn't seem to work. We researched online we should do and decided to take her Blue Pearl Pet Hospital (very expensive), They gave her strong anti-nausea (Cerenia) that blocks nausea from the brain and re-hydrated (Sub-Q) her. ($500) We felt comfortable knowing that professionals believed she wasn’t in any danger and headed home.

The next day, Sunday, she began throwing up green bile, we called them and asked what to do, they said to just wait, no food, no water (what the heck) or go back to them, being so expensive we went to Elmhurst Animal Emergency Clinic which is close to them. They gave her anti-acid (Pepcid shot) this time and re-hydrated (Sub-Q) her($200). They offered to do blood work and x-rays, but we had our appointment in 14 hours . (Everything they offered was less than half the price of the other place!) We took her home, but as soon as we were about to fall asleep around 11 PM when we heard her throw up. Even in the dark I could tell the color was different, it was a red-ish brown color and it smelled like poop.

We panicked, we called Elmhurst; Rafael was very helpful both in person and on the phone, unfortunately he said they were full and couldn't take her overnight. We didn't really know what to do. We called Fendi's grandpa to drive us and help us in this dire emergency, we went back to Blue Pearl. They estimated x-rays, blood work, some meds, plus overnight would be $4,000. This is not including the surgery, which would of no doubt-ably maxed out my credit cards. Fendi didn't like that option, so she threw up everywhere (haha) and we rushed her over Central Veterinary Associates (20 mins away in car)

At 1 AM we got to CVA, they were super friendly and we felt in good hands, the overnight plus everything she needed to save her was $1,944.00 and the surgery was $3,885.60. Plus $740 recovering there for another night.  Our Lyft bill add up to around $110 as well. We're thankful for Grandpapa being there on this night and helping save Fendi and roughly $4k. 

She was too sick to ever make it to her 9:30 AM Tue appointment. 

We don't have insurance for her because I lost my job due to COVID, my girlfriend is a full time student and has her own medical issues, and my mom lost her job because she got COVID, We didn't even get the 2nd Stimulus checks yet, I don't know if anyone else has. I am also enrolled in college to finish my degree and we both used our college money to pay for some of this. As you can imagine times are hard, but we did what we needed to for Fendi. 


Thank you for taking the time to read. I hope for all that read this can learn from our mistake of not having insurance, and to be prepared to know what 24 hour emergency Vet to go to instead of scrambling on Google last minute. As well as knowing what symptoms to watch out for with your own fur babies. Please help us save the girl who saved us.
                                                                                                 
                                                                                                    -With peace and love,
                                                                                                                     Fendi's Family