Help us pay Vespa's vet bills after she shattered her wrist

Hi, we're Breff and Aoife, two Irish folks living in Edinburgh, and this fundraiser is to help us pay for the emergency vet care and surgery for our 5 year old adopted greyhound, Vespa, who shattered her wrist in the simple act of jumping off a bed. Yup. That's what she did.

Her injury was more consistent with those you might see in a car accident. She suffered several fractures near the joint, extending all the way up her leg.

Due to the nature of the break, she was suspected as having a form of bone cancer common in ex-racers like herself. After some sleepless nights and CT scans, she thankfully came back clear, her break was just a case of absolutely horrible luck.

Because the primary break was so low, amputation of her leg was considered, but we wanted to give her every fighting chance to save her leg.

She had surgery at the Royal Veterinary Hospital in Edinburgh on Tuesday March 4th to put two plates in her leg and six screws (three near her elbow, and the minimum of three near the joint). This was a complicated surgery and her skin required more help to heal while stretching over the two plates.

The skin had started to turn purple and black near the curve of the surgery line, and there was a serious risk of the skin dying and amputation being necessary anyway.

Our last shot was a vacuum bandage, which used negative pressure to give the wounds (including several relief wounds in the skin to hopefully allow it to stretch) their only real chance to heal, which she wore for 5 days. Thankfully, this worked, and the brilliant team at the RDVH were able to save her leg.

We brought her home on Monday, March 10th, and her recovery and treatment are ongoing. She is in great spirits and has been remarkable.

Unfortunately, the total cost of her surgery and vet bills will come to almost £10,000.

Again unfortunately, we were unable to afford pet insurance and haven't been able to since we moved here in December 2023.

We are getting married in September and we have paid for her treatment entirely out of our savings for the wedding. We need any help we can get in recouping some of these savings.

We have a plan in place to get most of this back, including taking on extra jobs and selling our car, but any help we can get would be appreciated beyond belief.

We can't quite put into words how special Vespa is. She had a rough start in life until I selected to adopt her from the wonderful folks at KWWSPCA in Kildare in April 2021. She brings so much light to our lives. She is extremely friendly, bouncy (albeit thankfully not so much at the moment), and would sell her soul for a prawn cracker. She loves nothing more than sleeping and burying her nose behind your back when laying on the couch.

We faced the very real prospect of having to say goodbye to her through all this and I wouldn't wish this on anyone. To have her back when we thought she might not come home is the most wonderful feeling, and we'll do our very best to help her in her recovery over the next two-three months.

If you've read this far and are able to donate, thank you so much from the bottom of our hearts.