STELLA'S MEDICAL EXPENSES

Hello, I am calling on the Bombshell Army to help Heather and Stella out!!

Many of you already know the story of Stella's medical emergency and the stress and cost this has added to Heather's life. For those of you who haven't heard, Stella is suffering a severe case of Blastocytosis- a very rare and aggressive fungal infection. There is no cure or prevention at this time.

Anyone who has met Heather knows that she will do anything in her power to help in any situation, I have been on the receiving end of her goodness too many times to count. She has a heart of gold and Stella is her Baby!!

Let's pull together and show Heather and Stella how important they are to us by helping out with these insane medical costs.


HEATHER'S POST:
Fuck Blasto!

I’m not even going to apologize for bad language and fair warning that this is gruesome.

Stella is very sick. And certainly not out of the woods yet. She contracted Blastocytosis, a rare and insanely cruel and aggressive fungal infection. It can be found everywhere except Antarctica. It lives in wet areas. Swamps. Lakes. Rivers. It’s in the soil. You can’t find it, see it, detect it, prevent it, vaccinate against it, or get rid of it. But you can catch it. And so can your animals.

It’s sole function is to destroy the host. From the inside out.

Back in middle April she got what I thought was a hot spot in her groin. It festered and didn’t seem to go away for a while. She’s tough, it didn’t slow her down so she kept on into the swamps and Bush and all the places she loves up here. Middle May her face swelled up so bad I thought it was an infected deer fly bite because those assholes are vicious up here. Treated with Benedryl for a few days and seemed to sort itself out. June 13 we noticed a bump on her ribs. It was soft and squishy. I assumed another deer fly bite. June 14 we noticed her nostril was swollen almost shut. Assumed another bite. June 15, 11pm we are playing stick fetch in the woods. She’s running hard. Nothing out of the ordinary. June 16 130am, she gets wrestless. We pet her to try and soothe her and the abscess on her ribs explodes. Fucking explodes. In our hands. All over the floor. Several ounces of nastiness Erupts from my dogs ribs. WTF!! But we figured that needed to burst, it must feel so much better we thought. First aid the hell out of it. Irrigate. Express. Peroxide via syringe. Get her settled. Plan to call vet in the morning. June 16, 7am-hell breaks loose. She starts frothing at the mouth. Trouble breathing. Full fucking seizure. Launches herself off of the couch in convulsions. Her airway is blocked. I pry her mouth open and am bailing out tons of puss and nastiness with my hands from her throat. The abscess in her nose had ruptured and was draining down her throat. Full on panic sets in. I’m watching my dog die in my arms. Feels like the seizure lasts an eternity. She starts to come out of it. She clearly can’t see. She’s growling. Cant walk. Totally incontinent. We get her loaded into the truck and are calling emergency vets enroute.

I am now the official get away driver based on how fast we got her to town. We make it to one clinic In Hunstville that we’ve called ahead. They barely crack the door to talk to us. We are holding Stella, who is clearly not ok. Gaping open wound on her side. Goo leaking everywhere from her mouth and nose. She is dying. They won’t help us. They are cold. Rude. Ignorant. Millennial style eye rolls as we beg for help. I’m crying. Pleading for help. They close the door on us and retreat into their lair for what felt like an eternity. They come back annoyed. Irritated that we dare start their day off this way. They want to know her age, her normal vet, they want authorization to have her previous medial chart. Her history, her demeanour, what she eats, Our address, Her anecdotal medical history, and maybe even what colour of socks I was wearing. All of those questions feel completely normal now, but in the moment when you’re holding your dying dog and a glass door is separating her from the only people who can save her, fuck nope...I will save how I really feel about the women who answered that door as that is between me and God, but needless to say if I ever cross paths with them and they were on fire, I wouldn’t so much as piss on them to save them.

We called the Huntsville Animal Hospital. We told them what was happening. Without question they said to come. On the way there a train crossing. Longest train of my life. We arrive like a bat out of hell. Jump from the still rolling truck and run towards the door. I will never be able to thank those women for what they did for us and for Stella. No questions asked. They took her from our arms and brought her inside. They did whatever wizardry they do and got her stable. Administered the anti seizure meds and started running tests. Then, they came out to the parking lot where we waited and answered all the questions. Talk about priorities. Compassion. And people who are in their chosen profession for the right reasons. We decided to keep her there until we could figure out what’s up. She had another seizure. Thank god she was still there. We immediately started to call for referrals to an emergency specialist clinic as we all realized she was far too sick to be treated there.

Some more angels crossed our paths that day and we were able to get a personal referral to the preeminent clinic in Newmarket. Immediately. When we told Newmarket what was happening they gave us instructions how to transport her. And told us what meds to take in the event she seized on the way. We called Hunstville and told them the plan. Keep in mind none of these people know me. They kind of know Stella at this point. But By the time we rolled back up to Hunstville they had Stella and a bag of drugs ready per our instructions second hand from the emergency clinic. I gave them my credit card number over the phone. They gave us A crash course on administration of the meds and we flew to Newmarket.

The trip down was fast and uneventful as we kept her awake. No more seizures. We handed her over to the team in Newmarket who much the same as Hunstville, prioritized Stella first. Once they did their assessments, we realized just how serious this was. The only way to treat her would either kill her, or give her a fighting chance. And cost $7800 up front. On top of the $1100 from the first vet. Me and visa can reconcile that later....

Then we wait to see if she pulls through. She has more seizures in clinic. Testing is supposed to take 3 days to come back. We don’t have 3 hours let alone 3 days. Dr Malik calls in some favours. He sends me to go to a preeminent compounding pharmacy in aurora who have agreed to compound the drugs that could save her in hours and not days. In the mean time there are full chest X-rays. Bloodwork. Smears. Full IV fluids and antibiotics. Cleaning out her chest and nasal wounds. And goodness knows what else. We start the treatment for what the vet suspects...Blastocytosis. Fuck blasto.

At best he gives her 50/50 to pull through. We’re all helpless. At this point we have given her every single opportunity and treatment available. It’s up to Stella to fight. We come back home. Without her. And wait. The team at the Newmarket clinic are certainly proof that angels walk amongst us. I can call 24/7. Every single tech and vet has taken a love for Stella. They sit with her. They snuggle her. They love her. Dr Malik himself stayed the first night with her and kept me updated every couple hours. This man is a saint and so is his team.

The results came back a few days later confirming the worst. It’s a bad case of blasto. They’ve never seen one like this; only read about it in books.

Stella manages through the treatments. So he doubles down to give her the best odds. We go down for some daily visits to try and lift her spirits. She fights with a fever and weakness and nausea. But she fights it all. Her discharge plan was for Father’s Day. If she made it that far. But she wasn’t ready. She stays one more night there in step down before pulling the IVs and making a home treatment plan and another 1600$.

We bring her home June 21. With 8 medications most of which we paid for over and above what the treatment plan covered, so probably another 1200$. And a 3 page dosage chart for when and how to administer them all. I laid with her on the floor all night last night just listening to her breath. Her lungs are Swiss cheese and full of tracts where this infection burrowed it’s way out. Her radiology reports are fucking terrifying. Come morning, Her 8am time slot requires 13 pills alone. I managed to get her to eat some ground beef and rice. She is drinking ok. But she’s so weak she can’t muster the stairs on her own.

Hunstville and Newmarket have agreed to help treat her together to save her the 6 hour round trip car rides to go down there as often as possible. Proof that angels work together! There are blood tests. More X-rays. And a ton of visits in the next couple weeks alone to make sure those bastards don’t try and catch hold and fester again. And probably another few thousand dollars. The drugs that are saving her are about 500$ per month so far. But, The amazing compounding pharmacy will be able to overnight ship me her medications so I don’t have to drive down just for that. She willl be on the drugs for at least a year. Keep in mind, we don’t know when or where or how she caught this. So I can’t even protect her from that again.

So now, as I lay with her and try to love this sickness out of her, I watch her fight.

Noone should ever have to watch an animal go through this. No one should ever have to make the ultimate decision based on money. And the more we read about this disease, the more terrifying it becomes and the more we realize that awareness is our greatest ally for the time being.

There is no prevention. No vaccine. And if it wasn’t for the Huntsville animal hospital, Dr Morris in Elliot lake, and the Newmarket emergency clinic, there would be no Stella.

So now we wait while she fights. And bet your ass I turn into one of those helicopter dog moms. She’s my everything. And Stella captures the hearts of everyone she’s meets. So there are a lot of amazing humans in her life rooting for her. I also plan on winning the lottery tonight to fund her treatment plan as well as invest in a research group to figure out how to irradiate this hell on earth. Somewhere, someone deserves a Nobel peace prize for finding this cure...

Stella’s entire medical file is being shared between vets. This shit is most commonly misdiagnosed as pneumonia. Or lung cancer. The treatments for those will feed this disease and most often the animal will die. I will gladly share her entire file with anyone who asks. All my vet and tech friends. All my dog owners. The best way to treat this is to catch it early. Start treatment before it takes hold as bad as it did for Stella. Coughing, sneezing and runny noses are most common with lethargy and loss of apatite. But Stella had none of those. Which is why this one got bad. Don’t ignore the small things. It could be so much more. And now that we know this is happening in this area, the vets here are now better prepared for any others that may present in clinic.

Message me with any questions. I will share everything I have. And will keep updating about stellas battle over the coming days and longer.