Hi all,
Hope you are well and thank you all for donating to Dottie’s Givealittle page and for caring about our little lady.
Well, this week has been a bit crap tbh! Firstly, being concerned about her seizures reappearing and then as a result, re-living this whole where do we go for treatment and a MRI nightmare again. Now our house has been hit with a gastro bug (for both human and pups).
Briar was pretty sick for 24 hours, but she was back up in the morning like nothing happened. I got a little 24-hour dose and Pepper too. But Dottie is going on two days now.
We find Dottie is ok during the day, but both nights we’ve been up from midnight – 6am with her letting her outside, cleaning up vomit and giving butt-baths. Poor little critter! She’s a bit miserable, but picking at her meals and taking all her medicines. But she’s tough, so I hope she will be back to her normal demanding self in a couple of days.
CM & SPINAL CORD ISSUE PROGRESS:
Progress wise, when it comes to this MRI/checking her CM and spinal cord issue, this week we have:
a) Sent off a couple of emails to her vets/specialists about where we go from here. Suggested plans and asked for help locating what we need.
b) Taken Dottie to visit our local vet here for an all over check and discuss a MRI plan with them.
c) Sent off an email to Pacific Radiology too – They organise all the MRI scanners so will hopefully be able to let us know where the correct scanners are located. We wondered – if we could get her MRI done (locally) perhaps we could just send the images off to Dr De Pompa this time, without the need for a NZ radiologist report or neurologist.
WHAT ARE WE WORKING TOWARDS RAISING?
Costs-wise we are looking at -
1. Each consult with Dr De Pompa in the USA (via Zoom) is $1000 NZD. We probably need 2-3 of these.
2. MRI costs will be approximately $4000-5000 NZD (depending on where it's done and whether extra image regions are required)
Not sure what pet insurance will cover this time when it comes to Dot. They don’t pre-approve anything, so you just go through with it, pay, then submit the documentation and hope it’s accepted. Anything that does get approved, we put back into her medical account because (as we are learning) there will always be a next time. But we do know Dottie’s pet insurance won’t cover any fees relating to Dr De Pompa (as he’s not a NZ vet). This is why we are saving again into her personal account to fund what we can and have set up this GiveALittle to help with ensuring she can access everything ASAP.
Last year, the trip itself was expensive, let alone the medical costs, so if we do it locally, we will hopefully save more to be used for the next time.
CONCLUSION:
So atm we continue to wait for replies, because it has been Easter and I realise everyone needs time off and things are closed. Plus Dottie couldn’t be safely sedated atm with a gastro bug. But if we don’t hear back after a week or so, I’ll start pestering people by phone to firm up a plan. Of course, I’ll let you know more as we go.
Thank you again, to everyone who has donated, shared her page and sent their kind wishes and love. We know Dottie holds a special place in a lot of people’s hearts and it is really comforting to have a community of people who all care about her outcome as much as we do.
As always, if you have any queries – please DM us via Dottie’s insta!
