Help pay for the most expensive sock theft ever!

“Ask for help. Not because you are weak. But because you want to remain strong.”

- Les Brown

Asking for help isn’t easy. It’s not something my fiancée or I am used to doing. We like to try and figure out all of our issues on our own and solve them without anyone’s assistance. Up to this point, we’ve been able to do so. However, our lovable lab retriever Uno decided it was time to put us in a position where asking for help became necessary.

A few weeks ago, Uno began to vomit up his food. We noticed after one or two occasions that there appeared to be pieces of a blanket in addition to his dog food. I grabbed the blanket I had mindlessly thrown on top of his crate and noticed it was missing pieces. This is not the first time Uno has gotten hold of something he wasn’t supposed to. On the rare occasions we need to crate him (typically two days a week when nobody is home from about 7:30 in the morning until 6:00 at night) he can get very bored and very curious. We want him to be comfortable so we tried giving him dog beds and blankets in the past but those turned to chewy treats soon enough. We hadn't had any issues until recently when I tossed that blanket on top of his crate. We also had run out of his regular dog food around that time and supplemented it with something very similar. I thought maybe the issue was his food wasn’t agreeing with him. He wasn’t showing any signs of discomfort so we assumed he’d naturally pass the blanket pieces one way or another.

Then one morning, I gave him his breakfast and he didn’t want it. He always wants to chow down as soon as it hits his bowl so I became concerned. I then went to take him outside but instead of jumping around and making it impossible to put his leash on, he stood there calmly. Both of those behaviors were extremely unusual so we decided it would be best to take him to our veterinarian (ARC Veterinary Clinic - who do a great job). They checked him and told us he had a fever but they couldn’t tell if it was from what he ate or something different. They gave him fluids and some medicine but told us if he couldn’t keep that down, he’d need to go to a hospital.

We took him home and he seemed okay, albeit a bit sleepy. The next morning I came downstairs to see he had vomited up all the fluids. My fiancée called the vet and they told her he needed to be taken to the hospital. We are very fortunate to be close to Cornell - home to one of the best veterinary schools in the world – and that’s where we took him. They did X-Rays and found a blockage still inside of him that needed to be removed. The only option to remove it was surgery. Cornell needed a down payment of $3,000 to proceed. My fiancée called me in tears, unsure of what to do. I thought about it for less than five seconds before telling her to tell them to proceed. Uno is only 3 and a half years old. He has a long, happy life ahead of him and we weren’t going to let money stop him from getting to experience the rest of it. They warned us the high-end estimate of the surgery could be between $7,000 and $9,000.

We left him at Cornell so they could work on him a few days before Thanksgiving. The doctor called me around 5:00 and told me what the plan was. They needed to get to his large intestine or stomach to remove whatever was blocked inside him. He said the procedure typically lasted around two hours. The main concern was whether the blockage had reached his small intestines, which would mean a slightly more complicated (expensive) surgery. If we heard back sooner than two hours, it was a small intestine issue. We ate our dinner and then waited anxiously, hoping not to get a phone call any time soon. A little more than two hours later, we got a call saying the surgery was successful. It wasn’t as bad as they had anticipated. After being so angry at myself for carelessly tossing the blanket on top of his crate that led to this expensive, unplanned situation, I was somewhat relieved when the doctor told me the blockage was the result of a sock.

The mystery of how he got a sock OR managed to choke it down without us knowing is still unsolved. We never leave our laundry downstairs. As soon as it’s done, it goes into a basket and upstairs. But knowing that Uno would be okay was all that mattered to us. We were told he’d need to stay at the hospital a day or two and clear certain benchmarks before he could go home. On Thanksgiving morning, we got him back. It was a nerve-racking car ride home. He was excited to see us but after not seeing us for a couple of days and a cone on his head, he didn’t know what was happening. Every little bump in the road and every stop at the red light made me tense. We finally got home and had to endure a week and a half of him bumping into every wall, doorway, and piece of furniture in our house. After plenty of rest and medicine, he eventually showed signs of a return to normalcy. His appetite returned and he was excited to go outside in the morning.

His cone was removed and he is fully back to his normal, energetic, loving self. While we are thankful that he is okay, this was not something we (like many others) had budgeted for. With the cost of living rising every day, we now find ourselves in a financially challenging position. We both work full time but between a car payment, the mortgage, fuel oil to heat our house during the winter, and groceries alone, I’m not sure how long it will take to pay off the bill we received. We were fortunate to learn our bill only ended up around $4,600 instead of the high-end estimate of $7,000-9,000 but the money tree we have in our backyard hasn’t bloomed yet.

Amid the holiday season, we know everyone’s got a lot on their plates. Uno being healthy and happy is already the best Christmas gift we could have ever received. But anything you can donate would be beyond appreciated.

- Jeff and Abi