Figs CT and Surgery

Hello fellow hound lovers,

Apologies for the extremely long post but I hope you’ll make it to the end and give this heart broken girl some help and advice.

I adopted my boy Fig in April and have spent every second since absolutely in love with him. He is the most gentle, loving, happy and caring boy I’ve been lucky enough to love.

A few weeks after adopting him, Fig developed an abscess on his left flank which came on suddenly and unexpectedly, however was initially drained and cleaned. They weren’t able to determine what the source of the abscess had been but hoped that it would heal and that would be the end.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case. A month and a bit later, the abscess returned, bigger, and this time Fig developed a temperature, indicating there was an infection brewing.

He went in for a second surgery, which ended up being much much bigger then anticipated. The good news was they were able to find the source of the abscess. A GRASS SEED. They removed it but he had to have a large amount of tissue and muscle removed that had been damaged by the tracking caused by this seed. Despite this huge surgery, Fig recovered well and through everything, he continued to be his loving self.

We were so relieved to finally know what had caused this and be able to put this horrible situation behind us. Figs wound healed, he gained strength back from all the muscle and tissue he had to have removed.

We started to move on with our lives.

This all came to a crashing halt 3 days ago when Fig developed yet ANOTHER abscess, this one bigger and worse then any of the previous ones.

I immediately took him into the vet, dreading the inevitable.

We initially observed the mass for a couple of days, hoping that it was scar tissue that had filled the dead space that had been left from the previous surgery and that it would settle down.

This unfortunately wasn’t the case.

Fig was booked in for his 3rd surgery in 4 months which went ahead this morning.

I was so hopeful that we would finally have some answers to what was going on.

The news however isn’t good.

Despite their best efforts, the vet surgeon went into and drained the pus that had built up, but discovered that even more damage has been done and there unfortunately must be more grass seeds (the suspect at least 2 more) that have been tracking all through Figs tissue and muscle, making it’s way potentially to his spinal canal or worse, into his chest space close to his heart and lungs.

They weren’t able to find the grass seeds though and decided to close him up rather then just senselessly cut away at him, not knowing if or where they would find these grass seeds.

The vet suspects that these grass seeds had been in Figs body for weeks if not months before I adopted him, causing so much damage under the surface, that no one could have known about.

I am absolutely heart broken by this as we are now left with the decision of what to do next.

Our best option is to send Fig for a CT scan to try to pin point exactly where the grass seeds may be. This isn’t guaranteed and even if they are able to locate the grass seeds, best case scenario Fig will need at least one more surgery, if not 2 to try and get them out if they are not located in a place that may be too dangerous or life threatening to go.

Because all of this has happened within weeks of adopting Fig, none of this was covered by pet insurance and the bill is already at thousands and thousands of dollars out of pocket for me.

The CT scan is going to cost approx $2000- $2500, plus whatever costs are incurred if he has to go for another surgery ( $1000-$2000)

Never in my worst nightmares did I ever imagine this happening and it is absolutely killing me to be putting Fig through this, and for him not to understand what’s happening to him. It’s the worst feeling I’ve ever had.

As much as I wish that I had endless amount of money to give to get this sorted, I am a single mum to Fig and have used up alot of my savings already to pay for these last 3 surgeries and vet bills.

Any help at all that I can get to make sure the Fig gets the absolute best treatment he can would be so gratefully received that I can’t even put it into words.

thank you so much for reading this and supporting us through this really hard time.

love, Nic and Fig ❤️