Portia

For any of those willing to help me with Portia's expenses, or any of the other Iggy Palace dogs, please remember ALL DONATIONS ARE TAX DEDUCTIBLE! Through our partner and head organization, Bullie Buddies of Las Vegas, we are able to offer tax receipt for all donations. Just let us know when you make the donation that you'd like a receipt, and we'll happily e-mail you can print off, or mail you one, whichever you prefer.

We've hit a critical stage with Portia. We're now working with her vet to just try to keep her as comfortable as we possible can, but we know the end is coming far to quickly.

Portia's seizures have worsened over the last 3 weeks or so, a neurological exam this Monday indicated that she's now getting some swelling in her brain, it's unknown if it's the cause or result of all these seizures.

At this stage there's little else we can do. She wouldn't survive the sedation for an MRI, all we can do is try to control her seizures with meds the best we can until she lets us know it's her time to go.

A bad seizure last night (12/21) has taken it's toll. This time she's not recovering very well as she normally does, and we know the end is quickly approaching, and I desperately need the help and support of everyone to help me with her! So far we have about $100 in unpaid medical bills on Portia. When the time comes, it'll cost about $300 for euthanasia and cremation. We're also hoping to have enough raised to cover an ER visit if it becomes needed, and, sadly, at the rate things are progressing it's becoming very likely that it will. Any small amount helps, having been out of work for several months my funds are gone trying to care for her and a couple other special needs dogs - Please help me have the funds to make sure when the time come to insure things will be taken care of the way she deserves!!!

Portia's gone down hill, and with several other special needs dogs in rescue at the moment I just don't have the finances to get everything done needed to know where we need to go next with her.

The vet is suspecting either a liver or a kidney problem, likely due to toxic levels of one of her epilepsy drugs. Blood work to determine the levels of these drugs, and to check the health of her kidneys and liver is going to run about $300, and of course treatment for whatever is going on will be additional to that. We urgently need help to get this taken care of, we can't put it off very long, without knowing and getting her started on treatment if needed, she will likely just continue getting worse until they'll be nothing we can do to save her. Any small amount helps no matter what it is!!!!

Things are still difficult with dear sweet Portia, and she handles it all with such grace! Her epilepsy medications still aren't controlling the seizures as well as we hoped, and we're still struggling to get her heart problems completely controlled. After discussing options today, we feel acupuncture treatments is our next best step for Portia.

Initially the sessions well need to be done weekly for at least 2 months, at that point we can taper down to every other week and hopefully once a month. The hope is these treatments will allow us to achieve better control of her seizures and her heart problems without adding any more drugs that could interact with the drugs she's already on, or possibly cause organ damage.

Between the acupuncture, physical therapy/rehab visits, and medications Portia's on, we're spending about $550/month just on treatments. That does not count the bloodwork needed to monitor the levels of drugs to make sure they're not reaching toxic levels or damaging organs, or any other vet care. We realize many people thing this is alot to spend on an older dog - But we don't think ANY dog's care should be discounted because of age. If these treatments are as successful as hoped, they could provide Portia with many years of a much better quality of life then she has now. She's still going to need surgery to repair her bad patella, but we have to get her better stabilized with her heart and seizures before that's even going to be an option.

Much has changed with sweet old Portia since she joined the IPR family in May. We've had to adjust her meds to get better control of her seizures, but they're still not entirely under control. She was also just diagnosed with early stage congestive heart failure. Thankfully her meds are not very expensive, and with the heart and epilepsy meds, we have high hopes that she'll continue to do well!

However we really need help raising funds for this sweet old girl. We've got a orthopedic specialist that's willing to do the surgery at cost for $400 for her remaining knee (her right knee has already been fixed, but it'd gone on so long she still has arthritis we'll have to manage forever). Her left knee dumps her frequently when she tries to run or jump - But we need to get better control of her seizures and her heart problems before we worry about the knee. She has a grade 4 murmur, and with the CHF on top we just don't feel it's worth putting her through surgery at this time.

Our best way of keeping her comfortable adds up quickly - We've started doing some physical therapy sessions with her and it really seems to be helping with her mobility and her pain, but at about $50 a session, we've soon going to have to stop taking her if we can't get some funds raised - We hate to do this, as so far this has been our best option to keep her comfortable! We hate to have to resort to increasing her pain meds to keep her comfortable, especially with her other health problems!

While her medications are not expensive in and of themselves, the blood work to monitor their levels and to make sure they're not damaging her liver or kidneys is also adding up quickly, we've spent over $1000 on Portia's medical care so far, and while we will do our best to continue to make sure she gets anything her vet recommends it's putting a financial strain on rescue and preventing us from getting less critical medical care done on her and other dogs.

Please keep in mind donations are tax deductible, just let us know when you make the donation that you'd like a receipt!

Who couldn't love this sweet old girl?

Meet IPR's newest senior special needs resident, Portia! Portia is an 8 year old Italian Greyhound, who has sadly been passed from home to home because none of them where prepared to give proper care to this special little girl! She's a smaller IG, weighing in at 9 lbs, and very sweet with women. We're trying to figure out if she's purebred and just a very badly bred little IG, or if she's a mix. Either way it doesn't really matter to us - Portia needs our help, and we're going to make sure she gets it!!! Men scare her, and she's terrified of teenagers! She's epileptic and on phenobarb that mostly control her seizures, however Porcia needs some expensive and more detailed blood work done to rule out other possible reasons for her seizures, as well as to make sure there's no other underlying health problems that have been missed. She also needs a major dental done, which will cost upwards of $800 to get done properly. On top of all this, Portia has luxating patellas that have never been addressed, and at her age with her health problems we don't feel patella surgery is in her best interest - There's so much arthritis already in the joint, that the surgery would probably not improve her quality of life much - Her best option to manage the arthritis and pain is to get her into the K9 rehab center where we can work with her int he electrostim tub and cold laser treatments - We've had great success in managing older dogs with joint issues this way, however it's not inexpensive! We simply can't afford to get this vetting done until funds are raised - Please help us help this sweet old girl! She deserves to know what life SHOULD be like! She's got the sweetest personality despite everything, and has the cutest smile you've ever seen - We just adore Portia here and want to make sure she gets all the care she needs to improve her quality of life!!!