Help Gigi Fight Thrombocytopenia (IMTP)

In June of 2019, we adopted a 3-year old dog who was on her third home. Her first home was abusive. They also bred her at 6 months old, sold the puppies, and then dumped her at a shelter because they said that she wouldn’t stop chasing their chickens. The 2nd was loving, but she was a busy college student, and Gigi was passed from friend-to-friend with very little stability. When she found her way to us, she was so stressed that she had trouble eating, and it took a couple of months before she felt secure about finally being in a stable home.

Over the next two years, we found that we needed Gigi as much as she needed us. After being born with clubfoot, we had finally moved on from the intensive treatment to find that my son also has apraxia of speech. We started intensive speech therapy and OT to help him learn how to talk. Gigi was a calming presence when Saxon would have huge meltdowns because of his inability to communicate. She was never phased by any of it.

Unfortunately, two years after she joined our family, we came home from my son’s speech therapy to find her peeing blood. I rushed her to the emergency vet, and she was diagnosed with a UTI. A few hours later, we found petechia and hematomas all over her body. I took her back to the ER, and we started what would become a lifelong journey with Immune-Mediated Thrombocytopenia. IMTP is an autoimmune condition where the body attacks its on platelets, which are what help our body clot blood. Without them, we would continue to bleed when cut, and our body would bleed internally from even minor movements.

Over the next 6 months, we were able to wean Gigi off of the prednisone that wreaked havoc on her body, but also kept her alive. Finally, it appeared that she was in remission, but two weeks later, a few days after Christmas, she relapsed—hard. Her blood work showed that she had zero platelets, which meant that her body had no ability to clot her blood at all. A simple jump off of the couch could have caused catastrophic internal bleeding. Once again, she was on the highest dose of prednisone. They also added another immunosuppressant to help keep her body from attacking her platelets.

Since that time, with monthly blood draws to check her platelet level, we have been able to wean her down to a very low, maintenance dose of prednisone. It’s not a medication that she’ll ever be able to go off of again. It makes her feel hungry all of the time, but her life is still manageable.

On the morning of October 22nd, however, we awoke to a very sick dog. She was vomiting and extremely lethargic. Our vet knows how crucial it is to monitor her closely, and they fit us in immediately. Over the course of a 3-hour visit, they discovered that Gigi had pancreatitis. She is doing well today, and it looks like she will recover, but her blood work also showed that her liver values aren’t good. In a couple of weeks, we will rerun those to determine whether it was the pancreatitis, or the prednisone, that has caused the problem. For now, however, she is stable, and could happily live a few more wonderful years with treatment.

I don’t know how to euthanize a very special dog who can continue to live with the necessary medical care, but we have reached the maximum that we can afford. There is no more money, and we cannot extend ourselves any more on credit cards that will be too expensive to pay. We have now paid about $6,000 out of pocket. We are a one-income family, and I am homeschooling our son, which costs about $2000 a year. The bill from last night was almost $750. We’ll be paying another $250 later this month. Every month, her platelet check is $80. We really need some help.

All donated funds will go towards last night’s bill. Any extra funds will be placed in a savings account to cover future bills. Your contribution will literally be helping us keep her going. After a really tough first three years of her life, she deserves some more happy years. I don’t know how would explain to my son that our Gigi isn’t coming home. She still wants to fight, and I want to help her. Everyone who meets Gigi absolutely adores her. She’s a favorite at the vet clinic, too. Gigi is a friend to any and all who know her, and an extremely important member of our family. Please help us help her fight.