With A Grateful Heart And A Lot of Love

From Lola's Mom:

I have cried solid for two days, but tonight it is a different cry, it's a cry of gratefulness instead of total despair. I wrote a few weeks ago about Lola's spay surgery and the day we found out she is a hemophiliac. You can read about it here Horrible Day For Lola and Mommy. I was told  she should do fine unless she suffered a traumatic injury or her clotting factor dropped. Our way of life changed some, we have to be careful of her going up and down stairs, jumping off of high furniture (not an easy task with Lola who is quite convinced she is part mountain goat and climbs everything), any bump or cut that would otherwise be ignored have to be watched closely for bleeding or swelling which could indicate internal bleeding, her nails have to always be clipped by the vet, a bite from another dog could cause her to bleed out so no dog parks for her. Just little things that take on a whole new meaning when living with a dog who is a hemophiliac but worth it to have her in our life.

Until this week she has done fine. This weekend I noticed she was slowing down some, not my Lola at all. By Monday she was just wanting to lay around, I called her vet and took her in Tuesday morning. My world crashed in a matter of 10 minutes and one blood test. Almost all of her clotting factor is gone. That alone should not cause her to slow down so much but an internal slow bleed could. Being a hemophiliac an exploratory surgery to find the bleed was not an option, with no clotting factor at all it meant certain death for her. I was told she needed an initial factor VIII and gene therapy followed by three to four more treatments spaced out. Factor VIII alone is very expensive, add in the gene factor and the procedure to do it and I didn't have the money to have it done. My wonderful vet has offered to give her the last three to four treatments at a greatly reduced price. But still I could not afford that first one. My option at that time was to bring her home and say goodbye.

How do you say goodbye to someone you love that much when a treatment does exist that would help her? How do you just let someone go who sat by your son's side day and night when he had a very serious surgery last summer and sat by my side through my recent bout with a severe leg infection? I can't even explain the heartbreak and despair I felt. I can't tell you the guilt I felt knowing I was letting her down. My son and I are pretty much alone, we simply had no one we could turn to for help. I do have other children but they are just starting their lives out on their own, live in other states and none of them have money now either. My mother lives on SS and wouldn't feel the life of a dog was that important anyway.

I posted to my Pug Sluts group on FB to let them know what was going on with her and to ask for extra pug juju. Never did I dream that they would rally for her. They explained the Chip In to me and ask me to put one up for Lola. I have never taken anything from anyone but my Sluts taught me a valuable lesson this week, when it comes to these flat faces we love so much, you will do anything. There is no such thing as humility and stubbornness when it comes down to the desperation of needing to save one of our babies lives.  These loyal, kind and loving men and women who know us only through FB and this blog got busy and within less than 24 hours collected enough money to pay for her treatment. But they didn't stop there, they have also collected enough to pay for her second treatment and advised me to leave her Chip In up a few more days to help cover the cost of the other two. I am in awe of each and every one of them and will forever be grateful. Lola has a lot of aunties and uncles now that care for her and that is a wonderful feeling. She is no longer just my baby, she now belongs to all those that have helped to save her life. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart, somehow that doesn't seem enough, I just want to say more but I don't have the words. I love you all!

Lola has the procedure tomorrow and I need prayers and juju from all my readers. I want to explain the procedure she will go through. First they will give her a small amount of clotting factor by injection. She will then be put to sleep, always a danger for our smushie faces. They will then make a small incision in her abdomen which is terrifying for a hemophiliac especially when she will have only the very small amount of clotting factor they will have injected. It's dangerous and scary and I think my vet is just as scared about the procedure as I am.  They will then do a gene and factor VIII transfer into a vein in her abdomen only having a very small window of time to work in and then close her up. Then we pray she survives the surgery without bleeding out and that the transfer works. She will of course be carefully monitored and my vet is the greatest. Her blood will then be checked in a couple days to see if it is clotting any, if so then we know it is probably going to work. They will check her blood every two days for a week, then once a week for the next month. If all goes well she will need the second treatment in 2-3 months, the third treatment 2-3 months following that one. The fourth treatment will depend on the amount of clotting she has at that time. Hopefully she won't need a fourth treatment but we have no way of knowing that at this time. But she now has a chance and I owe that to all the wonderful Pug Sluts. I will let everyone know how she is doing as soon as the procedure is over tomorrow and I have access to my PC since Droid can be stubborn with Blogger at times I may not be about to post from my phone.

You see the Sluts not only know about the naughty bits and parts, glitter bombs, parties and outdoing each other with the worst possible cuss words we can come up with, or the grossest pictures we can find to post but we also know about loyalty to each other, love and friendship and we love each other's pugs as much as we love our own. This has been proven many times over. So for those who left our group because "our language or behavior" offeneded you I am truly sorry for you because in the whole scheme of things I couldn't care less what any single one of them say or do when they show this type of love and loyalty. THAT is what really matters.

Again thank you to all who helped Lola, know that I love you and know that if ever needed I will be there for any one of you.