04/20/2021
Ellie's Story: Cutest little bundle of joy you ever did see, was our Ellie Mae. Jim knew immediately she was the dog for us. She immediately stole our hearts with her little antics and her princess personality. She formed an immediate bond with Bryndal our special needs daughter (who for the record hates all dogs, except Ellie). She grew to become the smartest/most stubborn dog we've ever owned, but that never changed how loved she was. She has always been a trooper, an avid co-captain in the car, a HUGE supporter of the Starbucks Pupcup and she could never turn down a McDonalds sausage sandwich. Never in my WHOLE life of owning dogs has anyone ever touched me the way Ellie does. She provides so much love to our family and we would all be devastated if we lost her so soon.
In December of 2020 Ellie started showing signs of being extremely ill. She was vomiting, urinating clear fluid and drinking excessively. We took her to the vet immediately where they tested her liver functions and determined that her ALT levels were extremely high and they were pretty sure she had gotten into some form of Aspirin or Tylenol. Being that our home is filled with medications because of two special needs children and my ailing mother we thought there was a pretty good chance that she could have gotten into something. So we were assured that we caught it early enough and that with the right medication we could get her back to her normal self. By Christmas Day she was feeling more herself and was finally producing yellow urine. Fast forward to February of this year. Ellie became violently ill, vomiting again but this time many many times. She was lethargic, didn't want to eat, no treats, all she wanted to do was sleep and drink. We knew we had put some changes into place so that medication would never be an issue in the future. So again off to the vet we went where she underwent several more tests, this time a little more comprehensive. It was that day, a Saturday that we learned that our little girl was pretty ill. She was diagnosed at that time with Microvascular Liver Dysplasia and we were told that it would be life limiting and that we needed to treat the symptoms to try to help her feel better. By Monday of that next week we knew this was way more serious than the last go round and that she needed more help. We took her to the ER where they did another series of bloodwork and an ultrasound. The results showed absolutely nothing. But how is that possible? She was so sick, yet no answers. So with these results in hand we went back to our vet who was already perplexed with her case and collectively we decided that we needed to see a specialist. So we were finally able to obtain an urgent appointment with internal medicine (this is a thing people) who knew our little girl was ill. He just needed to figure out why......Again many blood tests were done, some sent out to big important hospitals and still no answers. As of today, we are still battling with symptoms and no answers. Our doctor has suggested that we have a liver biopsy done on her so that we can conclusively rule out Chronic Hepatitis, Vascular Shunts and Copper storage. Unfortunately having this surgery is another $5,000-$6,000 out of pocket. We have been put in contact with a couple of grant foundations and they are willing to help, but $800.00 isn't going to fulfill the total bill. So we have started a GoFundMe page in hopes to raise money to help us obtain this much needed surgery so that our girl can live a full and happy life. The alternate option of putting her down just doesn't seem fair when you are only 2 years old.
