Help Malakai Overcome His Medical Struggles

I have never done this before, and Malakai has had more medical problems than any dog I’ve ever met. Working in vet med I’ve been able to (barely) get what he’s needed done and thankfully get professional discounts but this time has been a bit different.

Malakai has been dealing with bronchitis for months now which has at some point turned into pneumonia. He has also been experiencing GI issues and has been acting strangely at home. This led to taking him to the ER a few times within the past few weeks, first time he was just diagnosed with GI upset but I knew something else was going on. Fast forward a week and this past Friday he vomited up what looked like spikey pieces of Nyla bone toys, mixed with hair and other foreign material. X rays showed his abdomen was clear but given his history we took chest x rays as well, showing the progressed pneumonia.

Saturday night into Sunday morning, he was acting strangely again so I took him to a different emergency vet. They opted to do an abdominal ultrasound which showed his stomach lining was 4x the normal size for a dog. Average is 5mm, while Malakai’s was measuring at 2.5cm. The ultrasound doctor said this could be due to severe inflammation from all the antibiotics he was on from trying to fight bronchitis, and he very likely has severe GI ulcers which is extremely painful.

We chose to hospitalize him over night Sunday and all day Monday to keep him on IV fluids and to receive IV medications/antibiotics and round the clock monitoring. We got him back home last night and he is on 6-7 different medications for 4 weeks with recommended rechecking an ultrasound and x rays in 2 weeks. If things are not improving in his ultrasound we are looking at an internal medicine specialist for biopsy’s and ruling out any underlying conditions.

We have already spent over $4,000 in the past 3 days (even with my professional discounts) and that does not include what I have already spent at my job on medications and diagnostics, or any additional testing/diagnostics which could be an additional $2,000-$5,000.

If you know me you know this dog is the most important thing in my life and my bestfriend, my heart dog and my ESA. I have spent the past 3 months trying to figure out what is wrong and how to treat him, and I am thankful to finally have some answers and a plan that I am hopeful and optimistic will work, but financially this has been draining. If you even took the time to read all of this that is beyond appreciated and if you would like to donate anything at all we would be forever grateful.

Thank you to everyone at my job who has been dealing with his case and with me being stressed, sleep deprived and cranky, and thank you to anyone who reads, shares, or donates. I love this dog with my whole heart and I just want him to get back to his normal goofy self❤️