PLEASE HELP... us Save Sparky's EyesightStory by Gemma Fisk of Fisk Literary Services - UK
On January 25th 2018, Sparky was born third of five puppies and he alone was covered in emerald green mucus that stained his white fur for some weeks. He was no smaller than his siblings, they were all a good size thus he was not a runt. Meggie, his mother fed and washed him and all puppies were doing well until day 4 when Meggie rejected the green stained puppy and pushed him away from his siblings to where he lay frozen to one side of the basket.
When Wendy found him, she picked him up, and believing he had died suddenly heard him whimper. Wendy quickly blew into his mouth and rubbed him vigorously with her hands praying earnestly for his survival, and named him Sparky due to the tiny spark of life still within him, then she placed him in a cardboard box on towels with a Microwave Hottie beneath them and placed the box alongside the wood stove where it was warmest. Wendy knew the first thing that had to be done was to thaw him out. He was frozen through to the bone. She checked his temperature constantly over the next four hours until he was finally warm enough to crawl around the box seeking his mother’s milk. Over the next 4 weeks Wendy hand reared him with a baby's bottle, feeding him every 3 hours throughout every 24 hours with puppy milk until he was capable enough to be weaned onto Royal Canin mousse.
All the same Sparky grew very, very slowly and at week 14 only weighed 1.97 kilos! By week 19 he was happily eating one bowl of True Instinct puppy kibble a day and he had abandoned the milk and was drinking water like there was no tomorrow. Nevertheless he is a happy little puppy, plays well, is obedient, loving, sweet, and has ears that he needs to grow into.
By week 19 Sparky weighed just 2.25 kilos and was just fur and bone, no puppy fat, no muscle, just a bony puppy beneath a mountain of fur, and on Saturday May19th Wendy noticed that Sparky had not drunk any water since Friday tea time. It was a mystery so fearing he needed emergency help Wendy rushed him to the vet.
The vet did a scan and an X-ray and tried to take blood to see if Sparky had a Portosystemic Liver shunt but Sparky’s body was so tiny that taking any amount of blood could be too much blood for one so small, not only that his veins are so thin that taking blood is nigh impossible and so the vet attempted to take it from Sparky’s jugular but when he did the blood just spurted without let up and the vet panicked thinking poor Sparky could bleed out in next to no time, for the blood was not clotting to stop the flow. Finally, they managed to stop it, thankfully.
Over the next few days, and on a drip, Sparky remained perky despite the numerous tests to see what was wrong with him, and when Wendy visited bringing Sparky’s ’teddy’ Sparky grabbed it and started throwing it around the pen before settling down and resting his head on it to sleep. Sparky loves that teddy, he has had it with him since he was 4 days old and every time he has to be hospitalised for a few days at the vets Wendy takes it with him to comfort him while he is away from home.
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It appeared that Sparky was responding to the immense amount of pain killers being pumped into him and he started eating really well, more than Wendy had ever known him to eat, and everyone wondered if an inflamed pancreas had been the problem all along. He was also drinking lots of water again, and everyone noticed gleefully how Sparky would hang one paw in the water bowl to keep cool. He is an intelligent little boy.
Suddenly when it appeared everything was going well, Sparky got severe pain in his abdomen again, and the vet did another scan of his liver and found it to be elevated to massive proportions with nodular like bumps all over it, and the vet did not know what to make of this and suggested that Sparky was admitted to the Animal Health Trust at Newmarket for an MRI scan.
Wendy took Sparky there on May 22nd 2018 and it was discovered there was an underlying problem yet to be discovered and the vet concluded that Sparky may have Type 1 Diabetes and he would require insulin twice a day for the rest of his life. This made sense as to the elevated liver and pancreas although the vet had never known a case where a puppy was born with diabetes.
To date the vet bill has amounted to over £8000, and Wendy has used her credit card to pay for it but with the possibility of another £1500 if Sparky needs an MRI scan and a further untold figure should he require surgery and then £6000 more for an eye operation to remove cataracts, Wendy's credit limit cannot take it and she earns only £440 a month.
If Sparky had not been such a perky little fellow that has touched so many lives by his loving personality and had not generated so much love to and from people in his short life so far, maybe euthanasia would have been the only option, but he is all of those things, and he deserves to live. He has defied all the odds, he is funny in a comical way, he is loving and he rushes to protect Wendy every time another dog comes near her. She is his mum and he may be small but you can see it in his eyes that he would readily protect her to save her life. All she wants to do is to save his. Wendy believes that the world is a better place with Sparky in it. Most of all Sparky is owed a life simply for being the little bright spark that lights up the hearts of everyone that meets him.
The vets are doing all they can and they have to charge for their work and the medications but the colossal bill is too much for one person, and just a few accumulative donated pennies by many people could go a long way to help pay some of the bill. Please help us raise funds to save Sparky.
Thank you.
Gemma, Wendy and Sparky
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UPDATE September 11th 2018 From Wendy Tunnard.
It is now September 11th, and Sparky has grown well and his diabetes is controlled but is no way out of the woods. The just giving fundraiser is next to useless, but I do thank the people that collectively put £120 into the pot. Sparky now has developing cataracts that yesterday's visit to Newmarket's Animal Health Trust (AHT) has revealed. He will have to have surgery in a few months time to remove the cataracts to avoid blindness. The cost of this surgery will be £5000 + vat, so that is £6000. Therefore, I am appealing for help every which way I can, and I received suggestions from people who have raised enough money for their dog's eye operation to open a Fundraiser Facebook Group for Sparky and arrange auctions and add a donate button that leads straight to PayPal.
I would appreciate help to provide Sparky with his veterinary treatment, and so far have shouldered the cost by myself and run up my credit card to the region of £8000 to date for Sparky's needs. I earn only £440 a month as a landlady and whatever I can on selling puppies once or twice a year, but the new dog law that will become effective in 2019 will put a stop to that, for I would require heated kennels to continue breeding and as my dogs spend their nights in barns once used for cattle, then heating them will be impossible, so therefore a licence would be declined to me. So my only income is £440 a month from a rented property. This is not a sob story, I am well aware that people have their own financial problems, but if you so feel inclined, any monetary help would be greatly appreciated to help save Sparky's eyesight and any extra that may be donated above the required money I will donate to The Animal Health Trust at Newmarket.
Vets at the AHT say that Sparky is a rare and miracle puppy, and that he will be entered in the Veterinary Medical Journal for vets to learn from his case in order to help future puppies born with Type 1 Diabetes.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Wendy Tunnard.
SPARKY'S HEALTH UPDATES
