I did everything in my power to make sure that Felony had an easy labor, but I was never prepared for what happened the night of the 30th of January, the night I thought I was going to lose my baby girl. I knew Felony was huge for her size, however I thought she still had another week. In fact, her appointment with her primary vet for x-rays was for that next day, I guess I didn’t do the math right. I called out of work and spent the day making her comfortable. I noticed that all her symptoms were lasting far too long, and finally I called the emergency vet at 10 that night. Before I could finish describing her symptoms, I was told I needed to bring her in to the emergency vet asap. Without hesitation, we were off to our local emergency vet. The vet tech told me they “couldn’t do two major surgeries that night” which is when I first realized something was drastically wrong. Why did she need surgery? We were referred to BluePearl in Tacoma and rushed down after packing an overnight bag just in case. I started to worry about the cost of surgery. I had no idea how much something like this would be, my boyfriend and I are both only 19, we had never experienced anything like this. I applied for Care Credit as soon as I walked in, however I had a pit in my stomach knowing neither my boyfriend nor I had any credit to our names. We were told minutes from each other that we didn’t qualify for Care Credit and the cheapest the vet bill would be was $1,500. The doctor said he knew for sure there was one puppy alive, however he didn’t know about the others, and if we waited any longer there may be no survivors.
To say I felt useless and defeated would be an understatement. I gave my baby multivitamins and did everything in my power to make sure she had a healthy delivery, but I felt as though I had failed my little girl. I was then introduced to the wonderful, life-saving organization known as Frankie’s Friends that said they would help cover the rest of the bill and I had never been so grateful in my life. I remember after the doctor left, my boyfriend and I collapsed onto my baby and told her how much she meant to us before he surgery and slept in our car until it was finished. At 4 am, on January 31st, we welcomed 11 beautiful puppies into the world, but Felony wasn’t doing so well. Felony was having a very hard time bouncing back after surgery and we were told that she would need to stay overnight. We left Felony and the puppies there, and went home, however we couldn’t sleep. We received a call from the vet telling us Felony needed a blood transfusion, which would bump the bill substantially higher. I didn’t have much money, but it was like Frankie’s friends and BluePearl didn’t care about what was in my wallet unlike most businesses, they cared about the well-being of my little girl. We visited her one more time in the vet, and she was not looking well. I didn’t think I was going to get my baby back. My boyfriend and I spent that next night bottle feeding the babies every two hours, which proved to be awful. By the time, we finished, it was time to restart with the next puppy again. I had no idea how I was going to do this with a part time job and being a full-time college student. We called the next morning praying for a miracle to find out that Felony was in fact fully recovered and would make it home with me. I cried, my boyfriend cried, my entire family cried.
Felony has been an important part of this family for 3 years now and we knew she had many more years. We needed felony, and Frankie’s friends gave us the opportunity to keep her. If it wasn’t for this fantastic organization, I would have had to say goodbye to 12 of my babies. That’s 4 baby girls and 8 baby boys. Frankie’s Friends saved twelve lives in a matter of days, and I could never express how thankful I am for that. The dad of the litter is so happy to have his best friend and his new babies home, we have a big happy Pitbull family of 13 and I get to hold and love my baby for hopefully a lot longer. I will be donating to this organization for the rest of my life, thank you so much again.