Sitting on her hands doing nothing was not an option. Cody, a flat-coated retriever, was sick, and Stephanie Green knew she had to do something, anything, to help.
Cody was born with a liver shunt (or portosystemic shunt). It’s a congenital disorder where the puppy’s bloodstream is disrupted and doesn’t flow through the liver as it should. When that happens, the liver can’t do its job and rinse the bloodstream of toxins. The kidneys are then forced to work overtime. Even so, proteins, sugars and bacteria continue to accumulate, and the puppy will get progressively sicker. At the very least, it guarantees a dramatically shorter lifespan and a diminished quality of life.
Stephanie lives with her husband and dogs in New Hampshire. Along with being a professor, she owns Milbrose Retrievers as well as Milbrose GlassWorks. Stephanie knows a little about liver shunts. Her beloved golden retriever Bing was born with the same exact problem Cody has now. However, Bing was treated and cured by Dr. Chick Weisse, one of the best canine interventional radiologists in the country. Nobody knows more about liver shunts in dogs than he does. At the time, Dr. Weisse was at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, and has since headed to New York, where he is now on the staff at the Animal Medical Center.
Cody is not Stephanie’s dog. She had been put in touch with Cody’s breeder by a third party. Cody’s breeder is not able to afford the expense of the surgical procedure he needs to live a more normal life. Even with a discount, the cost for the surgery alone comes to $5,000. That doesn’t factor in medication, special diet, follo- up care, transportation or, really, anything else. For the breeder, it might as well have been $5 million.
Stephanie decided to ask social media friends on Facebook for help and ideas on how to raise the money. She learned about ChipIn, a handy website for raising donations. A little after noon on Thursday, Stephanie set up a ChipIn page for donations for Cody’s surgery. Within the first half hour, contributions totaled one hundred dollars. Stephanie didn’t know what to think.
She had to admit, “I was just amazed at the amount of money we raised in less than an hour.”
The groundswell started. With the assistance of postings on different Facebook pages, picked up and shared by multiple friends to their various networks, the movement to help Cody caught fire.
“Seeing all these people come together and do this, I’m still a little awe-inspired. People from all over, not just ‘flat coat’ people.,” she said. “I heard from a woman who works with German Wirehaired Pointers. I couldn’t believe it. Cat people were giving!”
The donor pool wasn’t limited to Stephanie’s immediate friends, either.
“Donations came from Mexico, Canada, the U.K. and Europe for a dog they didn’t know, had never met, didn’t even live in their country, and that was amazing to me,” she said.
The smallest donation was $2, the largest $270. The initial hundred dollars turned into thousands, and at 6:30 on Friday evening, just over 30 hours after she raised the first $100, Stephanie reached the finish line she estimated wouldn’t be attainable until perhaps the end of August. $5,000 in hand, Cody’s medical procedure could be scheduled with Dr. Weisse in Manhattan.
This week, Stephanie will meet Cody in upstate New York, and then they’ll make their way to the Big Apple from home when it’s time to meet Dr. Weisse. It should be noted there are still more costs to come. Once the original surgical goal was met, Stephanie opted to raise the goal amount, to cover some of the additional expenses. They are now about $1,300 away from that goal.
Anything left over will be used as seed money for something Stephanie says she and her husband have always dreamed about – a charitable fund for pet owners faced with surprise expenses they can’t afford that could make the difference between treatment, a longer life and euthanasia.
After the procedure in New York, Cody will be in foster care. The search is on for the forever home that every dog deserves. Cody’s soon-to-be foster mom is a woman named Sue Hogan. She lives in Massachusetts, about an hour due south of Stephanie’s home in New Hampshire. Stephanie pointed out that Sue was instrumental in making the fund drive possible.
“None of this could have come to pass if Sue had not been willing to foster Cody,” she said. “Her willingness to take him precipitated my going to get him and thus the beginning of this. She is going to foster him until he can find a forever home but she can’t keep him.”
Stephanie explained why she took it upon herself to beg and plead on behalf of a dog she never met.
“I look at my (golden retriever) Bing every single day. We were told he wouldn’t live a year, and he’s two now,” she said. “He’s totally squishable, lovable, funny, and I adore him. He’s the sweetest thing, and he had the exact same kind of shunt. He had his surgery a year ago. Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2010. He’s happy, healthy, and it kills me that here’s Cody, who has the exact same thing as Bing and wasn’t going to get opportunity, for no reason other than money. It bothers me that it’s just money getting in the way.”
For thousands, perhaps millions of pet owners, money is exactly what gets in the way. Veterinarians see it every single day. With the help of well over one hundred friends, and the power of social media, Stephanie has saved one young dog. Cody will have a better than even shot at a perfectly normal, happy life, romping around fields and rivers, chasing tennis balls, and causing trouble like any good, upstanding retriever in a forever home. Perhaps, with help from others, Stephanie can assist more dogs, cats, rabbits, birds and turtles. One at a time — that’s how you change the world.
She’s going to seek legal advice on setting up a charitable organization to keep the momentum going. Personally, I’m hoping Cody’s saga is just the beginning.
If you want to assist in any amount, even just a couple dollars, please consider joining the wave of support by clicking here. If that’s not possible, consider telling others about it. Cody thanks you, I thank you, Stephanie thanks you, and who knows how many pets you’ve never met will thank you.
Photo credits: All pictures of Cody courtesy of Stephanie Green.
No comments:
Post a Comment