To All Who Saved My Life This Week

From the top of my very wrinkled head to the bottom of my double curled tail I want to thank everyone who helped save my life this week with money, prayers, placing my Chip In on your blogs and good juju!  I love each and every one of you for caring about me. Because of you I was able to not only get the treatment I needed to live but it paid for the two extra treatments I had to have to that Mom didn't expect. I guess I now belong to all of you and so you will all now be responsible when I do the bad things too. Sorry but the juju God's came and told me this, I'm just passing the message along.

It was a very hard time for my Mom, she was so scared and cried so much. I was so sick I just couldn't even lick her face like I usually do to make her feel better. Guess that's where the Valium comes into the picture. I am feeling pretty good right now and the vet says he thinks after I have the next four treatments I won't have any more trouble. He even told Mom that it has cured a few dogs and they have never had to go through that again. So please keep that juju going that I will be one of the lucky ones and those next treatments will cure me.

See my tongue still works and everything! That was very important cause I really need to be able to stick out my tongue when I want too.

And of course my beauty is still intact.

Not a big place at all, can barely see it now, but I am a little embarrassed to be showing off all my bits.

I mean, really Mom, you had to post all my bits for the world to see?

Oh well, I guess I will get over it.

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.

My Own Personal Pug Paradise

Look how long it's been since Mom wrote in our blogs! It's really been hectic around our house with the move, Mom's severe attack of clumsiness that resulted in all the hospital stays. I don't like when my Mom is gone and I will admit, with my head held high, that I did throw a few fits over it and well, at times made  Sister Girl and My Boy get down on their knees and beg for Mom to hurry and get well. I wasn't that bad but I did think that every car that drove by our house had my Mom in it and then it was major let down and pug scream time when they didn't. OK, maybe I was a LITTLE hard to handle, but that is as much as I am willing to admit.

This is me running to jump in the chair to see out the window every time a car came by. I just knew my Mom was in one of those cars. Notice how the Two Meanies pulled the chair out several feet from the window? That was to keep me from hurling myself at the window when I figured out the car was passing by and not letting my Mom get out.

This is pretty much how I felt while Mom was gone.

But My Boy and Sister Girl could always cheer me up with a belly rub.

I do love a good belly rub!

Then Mom came home and I would not leave her lap, which was OK cause you talk about somebody spaced out on medication, the woman couldn't take a straight step for days so she was pretty much couch bound. Which just happens to be my favorite place, on the couch in Mom's lap, soaking up the love. Best sleepin' EVER!

Then as I was laying there dreaming, minding my own business in Mom's lap, I got to thinking about Turdley Tucker and his man cave. So I decided to make my own man cave, only I decided to called mine Pug Paradise, cause I'm telling you that being in that cave in my Mom's lap was nothing but paradise!

So I slipped in for a quick nap, but making sure my head was out so I could still observe the household if anyone or anything did anything that needed my attention.

At first I wasn't too sure and still needed to be out far enough to be able to see Mom and be ready to move quickly in case she made a stumbling trip to the bathroom. It's kinda my mission in life to make sure she never again has to go the bathroom alone. But when the tongue started to slip out I knew I was losing the battle and drifted off for a nap.

In my sleep I scooted a little farther back into Pug Paradise and found it quite comfortable.

Soon the tongue was out again and I was out like a light for a couple of hours. In my Pug Paradise. I can see Turdley Tucker's need for the Man Cave now. Maybe he isn't just fur and bones filled with nothing but air after all. I mean if he knew about the Man Cave thing he has to have at least one neuron firing, at least intermittently. If he ever fires on two he will discover what I have already figured out. Man Cave or Pug Paradise, either is much better if built in Mom's lap!

Uh, I would let you in for a visit but I hear Pug Paradise calling my name and I'm getting rather sleepy. Maybe another time.

On a quick note I must point out Mom's choice of pajama's. Can you believe it? A grown woman wearing Mickey Mouse sleep pants. I guess they are an improvement over the Pee Wee Herman and Sponge Bob Square Pants ones she seems to favor and I should be thankful instead of slightly embarrassed. I do apologize for her poor taste in pj's.

Wordless Wednesday