Dinozzo's Medical Bills

Hello! My name is Lauren and I am fundraising to help with medical bills for my dog, Dinozzo. (His name is from the tv show NCIS). After suffering from multiple UTIs we decided to dig a little deeper and he was diagnosed with Prostate Cancer in September. He is responding well to treatment but in November he developed a mass on his ribcage. Of course, I assumed it was a tumor and the cancer had spread. By the time we finished all the testing, we found out it was a cellulitis infection, the infection had gotten pretty bad and he had to be hospitalized. Luckily he pulled through and was doing great until the end of February. He was having trouble going potty and I originally thought he was just constipated so we tried a few home remedies. After those failed and he started to show signs of discomfort I knew something was up. That weekend his paw got so swollen. We went back to the er and the localized swelling appeared to be a bug bite so they treated that and his test results confirmed another massive uti from the strep family. We got meds for that and went home. The next day the swelling in his paw spread up to the rest of his leg, then his armpit, and he had a fever, so I went back to the er. They treated him again for a bug bite and triage for his fever and we went home. The next day the swelling in his armpit started dripping. I wrapped the best I could but the next day it ruptured completely and was a huge hole, plus it smelled terrible so I knew we had to go back to the er. His fever was 105 so they hospitalized him again. We spent all night at the er trying to stabilize him and they decided it wasn't a bug bite but perhaps the cellulitis had come back or some other type of infection. They transferred us to critical care and recommended testing for septic arthritis. The critical care team decided it was most likely an abscess of unknown origins that became infected and ruptured. They suspected either the cellulitis never went away fully the first time or the uti/strep family infection had somehow spread. He was finally stable enough to come home but we have to come back every day for a bandage change to keep the wound clean. He could barely walk the first few days and was in a lot of pain. The test showed it was in the strep family but we are still waiting for the culture to form completely so they can determine if there is any reason to change our current medication. They let me know from the start that because of his cancer he is immunocompromised and the infection was so severe that he might not be able to fight the infection even with antibiotics. I elected to treat him anyway because he is my best boy and I love him so much. I could see in his eyes that he still had some fight in him, so if he can fight, then so can I. He does seem to be improving, just very slowly so I know I made the right call. Fingers crossed it can beat it completely and fully recover. Only time will tell so I'm trying to just take it one day at a time.

So now here we are months later and I've maxed out the care credit, one of my credit cards, and getting close to maxing out the second card. I'm lucky to have had the cards in the first place to pay for his treatment but if I max out the last card I will have no funds left for continued treatment. I've been selling plasma to help make extra money but even with that it will take years and years to pay off these credit card bills. We just need a little help to make sure the end of his life is comfortable and happy. 

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