Please help pay for Weasel’s life-saving surgery

Wylie Ziegler is organizing this fundraiser.

Donation protected

First and foremost, I want to thank you for reading this.

Weasel’s journey started a few months ago. I had noticed he was peeing more frequently & he had some blood in his urine. I was concerned and took him to the vet. The doctor gave me some antibiotics & sent us home. Several weeks later I noticed a small amount of blood in his urine again so I took him back to the vet. This time she told me to buy some cranberry supplements & sent us home. I bought the supplements and gave them to him daily.

On Tuesday, December 26th, I noticed he wasn’t acting like himself. He seemed to be in pain and he was peeing a small amount about every half hour. I decided to try a different vet that a family member had been to in the past. I got him in the same day and the doctor did x-rays. The X-ray showed 12 stones in his bladder and one in his urethra.

The vet was worried & squeezed him in for surgery the next morning. The vet said the surgery was successful and that he was able to remove 12 stones. I asked what happened to the stone in his urethra and the vet said he must’ve peed it out because it wasn’t there. Here are photos of the bills for his original appointment and the surgery the next day.

Weasel returned home that afternoon. I was so grateful he had made it through surgery but I was still worried about his recovery. Thursday went okay with Weasel resting most of the day.

On Friday afternoon I was in my bedroom a few feet from Weasel’s bed when he started screaming. It was the most horrible noise I’ve ever heard. I got to him a minute later and saw that his sutures were split open and his intestines were out. I grabbed the new peed pad I’d set down a few minutes earlier & held his intestines in the best I could. My sister lives down the street and rushed over to drive us to the Emergency vet.

The vet said they would have to flush out his insides, give IV antibiotics and redo the sutures. The quote was for $5,000-$6,000. I didn’t know how I’d afford it but I couldn’t bear the thought of putting him to sleep. I agreed to the surgery and anxiously awaited word from the vet.

The vet called just after they’d put him under anesthesia. She said she wanted to double check things and decided to do an x-ray. She said that the scans showed that the stone was still in his urethra and that his bladder was distended. She said it was likely Weasel strained while trying to urinate around the stone. Between that and his distended bladder filled with urine, the sutures burst. The doctor was able to slowly move the stone back into the bladder where she then cut it out. The surgery took 3 hours and was more complicated than the doctor originally thought. Weasel had to have a catheter, a drain in his belly and tubes in his nose to stop him from vomiting. Here is a photo of the stone the doctor removed from his urethra.

Between the complications from the stone and Weasel needing to stay overnight, the bill was over $8,000. Here is a photo of the 2 page bill. The subtotals are highlighted, as well as, the final total of $8,064.34.

Weasel is home now but has a long recovery ahead. He was given five medications.

He has to take the medications multiple times a day. He also has to do cold therapy 3 times a day for 5 days and then heat therapy 3 times a day for 5 days. I made a chart to keep track of everything.

Here is photo of Weasel’s belly 5 days post surgery.

The bruising has improved some with the cold therapy and Weasel is being a champ through everything.

This ordeal has left me heartbroken for all Weasel’s been through and anxious about his recovery. This has also been financially devastating as my only income is Social Security Disability.

Update Friday, January 5th

Yesterday Weasel was behaving more like himself and had fun walking around the yard. Normally, I’m not a fan of poop but I was extremely excited to see Weasel do just that for the first time since his surgery.

However, this morning he doesn’t seem to be feeling good. He won’t eat wet food or the boiled chicken & rice I made for him nor would he drink. I used a syringe to get some water into his belly but it wasn’t very much. Yesterday he finished 1/2 of his meds and today will be the last dose for the other half. The Emergency vet said it’s time to follow up with my primary vet. The vet who did the original surgery is still on vacation with no way to contact him and he’s the only vet at his practice. I contacted my primary vet (the one who told me to give him the cranberry supplements) but she’s booked solid. I’m honestly not sure what to do. The vets I’ve seen recently have not really instilled a lot of confidence. I’m going to continue to try to get him to eat & hope he starts improving. Prayers and good thoughts welcome.

7:18 pm. I got Weasel to eat a little boiled chicken & take his liquid antibiotic. I couldn’t get him to take swallow the larger antibiotic pill even in a Greenie pill pocket. I’ll try again in a while. He went outside and unlike early today, he peed a normal amount instead of a drop or two. He also enjoyed investigating the yard on a leash (no running allowed). I’m counting that as a win for right now.

Update January 12, 2024

Weasel has been doing well. His sutures are healing nicely and he gets to take off his co e today. Unfortunately, he had diarrhea yesterday with blood in it. I took him back to the vet today. The doctor said it could be that his intestines are irritated causing colitis. He prescribed a probiotic.

The test results are in: Sadly it’s not good news. His stones are Calcium Oxalate Stones. They frequently come back and are extremely hard to prevent. There aren’t many things he can eat. The vet suggested I make him chicken and rice for the rest of his life. It’ll be expensive and a lot of work but I’m really hoping it’ll help him.

Any small donation, or sharing of this campaign would be so deeply appreciated.

With love,

Wylie and Weasel

P.S. Here are some pics of my boy before he got sick