Join the Fight for Nala and Willow's Health and Recovery

Hi! Our names are Brittany and John. We are fundraising, or fur-raising, for our babies with four paws, Nala and Willow. The month of May really rattled our home with scary vet visit after scary vet visit. Both of our babies were involved in a dog attack/fight; Nala our sweet girl really suffered the worst of it.

The injuries Nala sustained were pretty extensive and required surgery right away. The surgery team placed a couple drains in her arm and several sutures which spanned across her face, ear, arm, and arm pit. While examining her during X-rays her before surgery, they discovered something extremely out of the ordinary. Upon an additional xray, now in a new location (her bladder), the discovery was unlike anything they’d ever seen. Her ENTIRE bladder was full with stones, large ones. This was extremely serious and life threatening, but they had to address her trauma wounds and have her heal from them first or she may not have survived a major surgery like that.

Initial healing time may have come for Nala, but we still also had Willow’s wounds to address. Although her wounds from the attack were far less extensive, she suffered an ear hematoma from the trauma. This means that a pocket up blood/fluid filled up in her ear flap to create a huge blood bubble which also required surgery to drain. The hematoma repair surgery called for what is called a “mattress stitch”, which is similar to how it sounds- her ear essentially looks like it’s been quilted with sutures. During surgery they discovered that Willow’s ear drum is no longer intact and this would cause some healing delay. Unfortunately, her ear healing is still in progress and we’ve still got a road ahead of us.

As timelines go, we were looking at a surgery a week for three weeks between two pups. Nala, Willow, Nala again, and now possibilities of more procedures and more medication for Willow’s lingering issues.

Once Nala healed from her initial attack and drain surgery, it was back to the vet for a life saving surgery to remove those stones. Seeing an X-ray prior, did not do justice to what we were all about to witness. Nearly a pound and a half of stones were removed, one being about the size of my fist! A literal bag of rocks. It was quite unbelieveable that she could have all that inside her and still be eating, peeing, running around happy playing… it was something else. It’s still really difficult for me to physically say that this dog attack was a “blessing in disguise”, but the fact is, our baby would’ve just continued suffering without us knowing and it could have one day, very quickly, killed her, and we wouldn’t have known why. We are beyond grateful to Amber at Valley Veterinary Hospital, for being what she would call “the bearer of bad news”, but what we would call “the Nala saver!”. Nala is healing up quicker and better than expected, she is our trooper and we are so thankful she is still here with us. She will have to remain on a special, albeit expensive, prescription diet for the rest of her life to combat these urine crystals that she is prone to, but we would do anything so our baby doesn’t have to carry another stone ever again!

As I previously mentioned, how timelines go, Willow should have been the first to be all healed up, but unfortunately things have proved different. Amidst the healing of her ear flap sutures, something else has been brewing inside (which there was some prediction to due to the eardrum not being intact), but still not the best case scenario. She has developed a pretty gnarly ear infection which now requires a second round of a much strong antibiotic, as well as inflammation injections and a possibility of more if the infection is not resolved.

Both of our babies are still rocking their cones and sutures. And weekly we seem to have a new process and vet bill due towards their healing. We will do anything for our pups and we do, but we can also humbly say that this was the last thing we expected in our month of May - and we certainly didn’t expect to spend a couple thousand this week, and then another couple thousand the next week, and then another FEW thousand the week after that, all to owe several more hundred even after that. We can honestly say, we need help. And any little bit would help.

Thank you to every single person that has taken the time to read this far, or share our post, or donate. Thank you thank you thank you. And thank you twice more from our pups, Nala and Willow too It means the world to us!