Dear Friends,

This is Lily. She is our beautiful 3 yr old Bullmastiff who adores people. Lily needs your help! She is in liver failure and we her family are unable to pay her ongoing vet bills to help her get better.

A little about Lily. She is an AKC registered Red Bullmastiff. We drove 18 hrs straight to Kentucky and back to bring her home to us. And up until now she has been a healthy happy dog. And this is where our journey begins...... A few days ago Lily stopped eating her dog food. For those of u that have never met Lily this is not normal. For Lily has always been, Jokingly, our garbage can dog. She eats everything edible or not. We started giving her pumpkin and rice baby food to help keep food in her. She was still drinking water and acting normal. On

Sunday night, Sept 14 Lily started vomiting. At first it was foam and yellow bile. By Monday morning it was dark fecal like vomit. We immediately called the vet. Seeing her sick made the world come crashing down around us. Our family has been struggling for sometime now. Money is tight.....very tight. The idea of vet bills made us sick to our stomachs. How are we going to do this if it it turned out to be something serious. I was frantic. I called every vet I could think of for an option of payments, or work. The only help I got was one that would Euthanize for free. EUTHANIZE........ Without knowing what was even wrong? No that was not an option. We decided, we had not payed mortgage yet, that the mortgage money would be used for her bills and headed to the vet. Some of u may be thinking how irresponsible of us, but our animals are part of our family. And without her there would be a hole in all of our hearts. The vet came in. She examines Lily and says this does not look good. We want to do ex-rays and bloodwork. I immediately let her know we can not afford much. Ex rays, bloodwork, and exam comes to a little over $300 let's start there. She takes Lily and leaves me sitting in that exam room with 2 1yr olds wondering how did it ever come to this. The vet returns with bad news. Lily's liver and spleen are enlarged. Her proteins are dangerously low, her heart rate is high, she is running a fever. Her bilirubin is off the charts. The vet suspects Lepto, but cannot rule out cancer or other possible infections. She recommends going to mvs for blood transfusion( min $2500 referral) , and she needs hospital if fluids, penicillin, and an ultrasound. My heart sinks into my stomach, this is the end. There is no money. Do I have the courage and strength to fight a possibly loosing battle? I look at Lily, for the first time on this awful day her ears perk up as she stares at me. I remember a moment this morning when one of our twin girls stopped before getting in the car for school to lay with Lily and give her a hug and kiss. I yelled for her to get in the car( I was frantic to get back and take Lily in). She says" mom I needed to say goodbye to Lily bear". I almost deprived her of her possible last moment with her dog. How could I not fight for this amazing animal. I ask the vet what do we need to do to get her through the next 24hrs. She gives her an anti-nausea med to stop the vomiting($125) and a penicillin injection($25)to help with infection and calls in a script for amoxicillin. She tells me she will need both again tomorrow, and if not starting to perk up the Iv fluids and possible blood platelets as well will be necessary, and they only do the blood transfusion at mvs. ($2500) This brings us to why I am writing this. We are in over our heads. Lily needs your help, We need your help. We do not have the money to go back tomorrow, we need to replace the money we spent today to keep a roof over our heads. There will be many challenges to come in Lily's journey for survival. One that may possibly be for the remainder of her life if it is cancer. It will be an uphill battle to get her better but we are willing to fight until all our resources are empty. If you decide to donate to Lily's fight for life fund today please know all money will be going to her care. We will be eternally grateful for any help we receive to give Lily the chance to hang on long enough for us to save her. Sincerely, Christy Dusendang Sent from my iPad