About me:

My name is Julie Hershberger and I have Opie's "Special Needs" English Bulldog Rescue.  I assist/rescue bulldogs with special medical needs and find them excellent quality homes that can help them with their care.  

I have been made aware of a German Shephard, Gracie, that is in need of a cart from Eddie's Wheels.  I have posted her story below from her owner and I would like to raise funds to get her the cart that she needs.  Gracie lives in Michigan. 

All funds will go into Opie's Rescue paypal account from the fundraiser and then sent to Eddie's Wheels directly for payment.............I will also be posting a receipt as proof that the money went directly to Eddie's.  Follow up pictures of Gracie in her cart, once she receives it, will be posted on my rescue page.

Here is the story from her owner:

On “Good Friday” of 2014 Gracie was laid up with her back bothering her so she was on strict bed rest along with pain meds and muscle relaxers. While I ran to the grocery store to grab some food for Easter she must have been really bored as she ate two rubber ducky toys that I left with her because she was on bed rest.  She started having tummy issues a few days later and puked up some toy pieces…this went on every couple of weeks until late August when her stomach became really sore to touch and x-rays were showing unidentified object in it.  So on August 23rd she had stomach surgery…they removed 13 pieces of rubber ducky dog toy from her stomach.  (you are probably wondering what this has to do with her back)

 Well 5 weeks post stomach surgery Gracie wasn’t feeling well and she asked to go outside and she looked “green” like she had to puke (this was on Sept 28 I believe).  I let her outside and normally she lays down to puke but I think because of her stomach surgery she decided to stay standing (and I think her abdominal wall was weaker than usual from being cut into) and she hunched up bad when she puked…within an hour of puking I noticed her walking funny…a drunken stager kind of walk and I also noticed her mid-back looked hunched up and odd but she wasn’t crying in any pain. 

I called her Neurologist and we put her on prednisone and bed rest for a week solid except for going outside to go potty (which she fell twice in her poo as she was trying to poo and got a UTI from it).  She got a bit better but not enough to stay like that and so I had an MRI done on her back…well I got the worst news possible that she had 4 yes 4 disks in her back bulging / ruptured.  The two in the middle were considered severe and the two on the outside were considered moderate.

So a week later she went in for back surgery (October 14th).  She had major complications with bleeding during the back surgery and her Neurologist even called me during the surgery to ask if she had been given aspirin which she hadn’t.  I’ve never given her aspirin in her entire life.  He thought it strange that she had acquired some kind of bleeding condition in the last 7 weeks since her stomach surgery (because she had not a single issue with the stomach surgery….it was text book).  So he could only fix the 2 severe disks and he left the moderate ones as they weren’t as bad and with all the bleeding he wanted to close her up. 

She was doing pretty good post-op and had feeling in her rear legs……and the feeling was improving by the hour…then around the 36 hour mark I got the dreaded call that she lost ALL feeling to her back limbs.  The Neurologist said he thought she built up a hematoma on her spinal cord (a blood clot) and it was causing the issue. 

So he had to go in and preform a second surgery and sure enough there was a HUGE hematoma on her spinal cord.  She yet again had severe bleeding and so he put in a drain tube so the excess blood could drain off and we could hope for the best.  She also needed a transfusion at this point due to the loss of blood and then two days later was transferred to an 24/7 emergency facility that could look after her while she recovered.  While there she had bilirubin in her urine and liver and blood counts were off the charts…she also got her UTI back and that needed drugs (Baytril / Clavamox) but as she went off them within two days she would get the UTI back…well we found out the Baytril and Clavamox weren’t working so we needed to switch to Simplicef which was the cost of a car payment!!!!

 So needless to say it has been a very slow recovery and she has yet to regain full use of her rear legs.  She has regained bowel and bladder control, some minor movements of her rear limbs and her tail will wag a little bit now.  She was gaining and doing better but I had to cut back on therapy as it was costing me $875.00 a month and I ran out of funds…so now I am still struggling to recover from all the complications and unforeseen costs of it all.  So I don’t have funds to get her into a doggy cart which is $605.00 from Eddie’s Wheels.  She has been measured for the cart and Eddie’s Wheels has my info but I am in a holding pattern as I just don’t have the money to get her the cart to be able to walk around and take walks with me or play in the back yard like she used to love to do all summer long.