Please help give Tama a chance to come home to us

On the evening of Monday 1 March our lives changed forever. Our 5 year old, normally healthy and bouncy fox terrier Tama had what seemed like a little bit of vomiting at around 5:30pm, but things turned awful pretty rapidly. He had been sick about twice and then lay on the couch looking exhausted before drifting off to sleep around 8pm. We thought he was just feeling yuck so left him to sleep it off. Around 10:30pm I was alerted by a frantic scratching of claws on our wooden floors in the kitchen. My first thought was that Tama and his sister Tia had gotten into the dog food, but sadly that wasn't the case. What I was confronted with was a horrible sight of Tama frantically trying to stand, looking petrified as his legs couldn't support him, and his sister desperately licked him to try and reassure him that he was okay. Shortly after, we rushed him to the after-hours vet in Ngauranga Gorge where they told us he was exhibiting classic signs of karaka berry poisoning. At first we didn't think this was possible, as we don't have a tree in our garden, or anywhere nearby. The next morning I scoured the garden for any signs of things he may have eaten, I found a karaka pod, then another. It seems the local kereru (NZ wood pigeons) had brought the berries into our garden when they flew over. Since then, our lives have been turned upside-down, trying to hold down a normal life then from around 6:30pm we rush Tama between our local vets (who are amazing) and the after-hours vets, which is about a 25 min drive away. All the vets and nurses have been amazing, but no one can tell us if and when he'll recover, and what that might look like. He has some amazing moments of being okay followed by moments where we look and him and think he is slipping away.

At the moment his days are filled with drips with oxygen, fluids, anaesthetic, electrolytes and constant monitoring. They are trying to wean him off the anaesthetic and onto a tablet so that we can bring him home. The reason they're wanting him on the anaesthetic is because it stops him having seizures where his body goes rigid and his eyes gaze far off into the distance. They said when he has too much stimuli his brain seems to misfire and it causes him to seize up. The vets have said that they are hopeful he will make a full recovery but the journey could take up to 8 weeks.

We have got pet insurance but this only covers us for treatment up to $5k, and just the after-hours vet bills we are just up to $3k already, and heading into the weekend.

I have had a lot of requests for a Give a little page as a lot of you have said you would like to help us out. Please don't feel obliged and only give if you can afford it. I don't want to prolong Tama's suffering but I just feel like he needs a little more time to have a shot at recovery, the vets say he's not in any pain but at the moment we don't know how much of a recovery he can make.

Sending you all much love and we are all so very grateful for all the messages, texts, parcels, phone calls, prayers, chants, healing vibes and love that you have shown to all of us.

Much love always

Candi, Ross, Sophie, Annabelle, fur baby Tia and of course my darling boy Tama xxxxxxxxxxxx