Help Everett Walk Again: Support His Recovery

On the morning of October 15th Everett woke up completely unable to walk, so we got him to our primary vet at 7:30 am when they opened. After running multiple tests, they transferred us to the nearest emergency vet. Hours of laying by his side, talking to poison control because he had gotten into our son's vitamin D a few days prior, and multiple IVs to flush his system, we were then transferred to another vet with a neurology department in Durham. Before picking him up to get him in the car, I was rubbing his neck, and he flinched in pain. That's when I knew there was something more serious going on. We got him to Durham, and they gave him an MRI that determined he had a herniated disc in his C2/C3 region of his spine. The doc indicated that they would have to perform surgery, and it's a 95% success rate. Well, he was in that 5% margin of failure because after the surgery, he was completely paralyzed and was having difficulty breathing. They performed yet another MRI, which indicated he had another herniated disc in the same region. After the second surgery is when we started to see some improvement. He's home now, and each day he gets just a little better, but the challenges we're facing are like having a 65lb newborn baby. Although he's improving, he still cannot walk without assistance, and we had to get a specialized harness as well as install several handicap assistance things in the home to accommodate him.

We've been encouraged to start a fund to help with Everett's vet bills because there have been people that want to help us in some way. Unfortunately we cancelled our pet insurance last year because of issues with them covering things. Our current total is over $17,000 in total bills, and they will increase as time goes on for therapy, additional visits, more MRIs (at $5,000 a pop), specialized equipment, etc., and any amount of support is more than appreciated.

Everett is more than just a dog in our family. He's warmth when we are cold, our support system when we're down, our clown when we need to laugh, and most importantly, he's our family.