Hope for Archie

5/5 Update:

(Facebook.com/ourhopesjourney) GFM is up to the goal amount of $7,000 So we can afford to have Archie stay the weekend in hospital, fighting. We will never be able to thank you all enough. We are not giving up!!!!! ❤️‍

5/2 UPDATE:

Both Hope and Archie have been admitted to their respective hospitals tonight for emergency care. For each of them, this is the third hospitalization in just a handful of days. Our hearts are filled to bursting with gratitude for everything you have given to our family. We are taking the next steps now - raising the bar - to give both of them every treatment option, and all the best care. Thank you so much. I hope we get to come home again soon. For now, it’s in to yet another surgery with Hope.

…

…

…

Original story:

My four year old daughter Hope, and her four year old dog Archie, are *both* battling Kidney Disease. ❤️‍

Between 10 & 1 tomorrow I should be getting calls from *both* of their hospitals with updates on treatments… Archie is currently admitted. And Hope may need to be readmitted, (depending on antibiotic sensitivity) with a culture positive for another kidney infection at home.

I can hardly wrap my head around this.

Hope was born with CKD & only one functioning kidney. She has had dozens of surgeries over her little lifetime - her most recent operation March 22nd ending in the ICU with severe kidney decline, and sepsis.

We spent two weeks at the hospital. Friends, family and neighbors cared for siblings and pets during that time. When Archie stopped eating as much as he used to, we blamed stress and anxiety in our poor rescue pup... Unfortunately in the weeks following our discharge, that didn’t improve.

He’s been playing, walking, drinking, training with treats, all normally - with no other symptoms. Just this need for extra coaxing to eat his regular diet, and a Mom’s sense of “something just is not right”… When weight started rapidly melting off, we called the vet. When we got him in, their first concern was cancer.

When the doctor came back with not cancer results but Kidney Disease, and a sudden decrease in function, I think I went into shock.

When I stuttered “that was exactly what we were in the hospital for with Hope in the first place”, it was her who said “Oh God, I could throw up, I’m so sorry.”

I agree…

Hope has been working SO hard at home to adjust to her new emergency tubes & bag, fighting chronic infection and severe deconditioning, in and out of constant testing procedures and therapies. She has major surgery coming up once again in June. More in August. And then, *if* we can get her through all of that as planned - she has a spot waiting for her in preschool in the fall. We have a glimpse of light at the possible end of a 5 year long tunnel.

I can’t stomach the thought of her losing one of her best friends to this disease. Not ever - but especially not right now.

I need her and her siblings to know that this battle can be fought, and won. That Hope and Archie can both be admitted into hospitals - but come home, safe and sound.

We are doing everything we can.

We need your help. I put down a $3,000 deposit at Tufts animal hospital last night alone, despite drowning in Hope’s therapy & specialists copays as it was…

We’ve survived on one firefighter’s income somehow since I became Hope’s full time caregiver. I hate to ask. This is just too much.

Thank you so much, for everything all of you have done and continue to do for our family. We love you. ❤️‍