Support for Yohji's Hospitalization Costs

Yohji was my life partner for the lucky 7 years I was able raise him and love him with my whole heart. He has been with me through every life milestone in my adult life including my college graduation, multiple apartment moves, heartbreaks, family trauma. When I was alone in my worst moments, he was always there to make me feel needed and like I was the only person in the world. We were supposed to move to New York City together over the first weekend of January 2025 and start a new chapter of life together.

On December 1, 2024 he entered the Downtown Dog facility in Dallas, TX. I was away in NYC starting my new job and looking for our new home.

On December 5 at approximately 2:30 EST / 1:30 CST I received a phone call from the front desk worker at Downtown Dog because he had been exhibiting symptoms of GDV (bloat) for several hours and they wanted my consent to take him to the vet. This was the timeline that was described to me by the DD employee:

I have described the events of December 5 and our dealings with the Downtown Dog staff in great detail in this Reddit post.

The Downtown Dog staff knew he was sick from 7:30 AM - 1:30 PM and failed to communicate with me at all about his condition. GDV (bloat) is a common and acutely life-threatening emergency that is common in larger dogs, and it can be fatal in 1-2 hours. By failing to communicate with me for nearly 6 hours, they denied my right to seek his access to necessary and urgent medical care.

After he was finally transferred to a hospital and operated on (approx 9 hours from his first attempt of unproductive vomiting), the surgeon called me to describe the state of his organs when he first opened him up - his spleen had gone fully necrotic and 50% of his stomach had turned completely black from the lack of oxygen over this several-hour timespan. The smell was horrible and all of this dead tissue needed to be removed.

He suffered complications for the rest of the month of December and needed to be hospitalized a total of 3 times, with 2 extensive surgeries. Yohji passed suddenly and painfully on Christmas morning, one week before we were supposed to move to New York City together. I am thankful we were able to spend a few weeks together and that I could hold him and kiss him while he passed.

Our hospital bill is now $30,000. I have attempted to settle some financial responsibility with Downtown Dog as I am shocked and disturbed by how they failed their duties in caring for Yohji in an urgent medical emergency. We have been loyal clients for the majority of his life and always thought of them as his second family.

They strung my family along with empty promises, threatened my family, admitted that I should have been contacted sooner and even shared that a dog had died previously from the same condition. As time went on, the ownership eventually began to backtrack by deflecting responsibility and changing the timeline, despite the events being confirmed by multiple call logs, text screenshots, medical records, verbal confirmation by the DD staff and the staff at Yohji's primary veterinarian clinic.

I am trying to raise $25,000 to help finance these medical bills. My first priority is to pay back my generous mother, where there are not enough words for me to express how thankful I am for her constant unconditional love and support. She not only extended $8,000 of her credit lines to help me pay for his second extensive operation and multi-day stay in the ICU, but also lent me $15,000 from her retirement funds so that I would not be penalized by the high interest rates on my credit lines. This $23,000 would go directly back to her, and the remaining will contribute to my credit card debt for Yohji's hospitalizations.

Thank you for your interest in supporting my family through this extremely traumatic event and the subsequent financial burden we have taken on in trying to save my beloved friend. Words cannot explain the heartache I have endured these last 2 months. I miss him every day and I feel like a part of me is gone. But I am touched by the almost instantaneous support from not only my network of dear family and friends, but also kind strangers in the DFW community that expressed immediate interest in contributing to our fundraiser. Thank you so much.