Hey everyone,

My name is Danielle, and I’m reaching out with a heavy heart to ask for your support for my Great Dane, Winston. On August 1st, 2024, Winston underwent surgery to remove the third digit (toe) on his back left paw due to a tumor he had. The surgery itself went well, and we were hopeful for a smooth recovery initially. He was healing fine, up until a couple of weeks ago, where he got an infection in his foot due to a lack of oxygen. We have made sure to triple check every time we wrap his foot that everything is cleaned thoroughly, loose, and has room to breathe. On August 11th, the infection looked terrible, so we took him to the vet on August 12th and they gave him an antibiotic shot which helped tremendously. We were once again hopeful that he would heal up after that, but unfortunately, things took a turn for the worse. I just want to quickly say that we were able to raise enough money for Winston's surgery on August 1st to amputate his toe, and we are so thankful to those who donated—it truly helped so much.

We have been changing his wound dressing twice a day, cleaning it twice a day, and constantly communicating with our vet—calling, emailing, and sending photos of Winston’s foot daily (sometimes multiple times a day). We’ve been monitoring Winston literally all day, every day. Due to this, I haven't been able to work as much, which has caused major financial stress on top of issues I’ve been having with my job that I can’t go into detail about, but to make a long story short, I am not making as much money as I was at the beginning of this year due to some issues with contracts and other ongoing issues such as my Facebook account being partially demonetized.

Winston was doing fine up until a few days ago. While Winston's incision from surgery is healing nicely, his entire back left paw around the surgery site has become severely infected again. I sent photos of it to our vet like I do every day, and our vet referred us to a Boarded (Board Certified) Surgeon to get a second opinion. We had an appointment set for Thursday, August 22nd. Well, last night (Aug 20) when we were changing his bandages, we noticed his entire foot, paw pads, and ankle were swollen and looked awful. I immediately called the Boarded Surgeon because they're open 24/7 and have an emergency department. I explained to them that I had an appointment for Winston on Thursday, and they told me based on what I told them, they'd like to see him immediately.

Right after that phone call last night, I took him to the emergency dept. When we got there, they brought us back into a room and I explained everything that's been going on in detail. They took Winston back for evaluation, and when they came back they told me that they needed to keep him overnight and probably for the next 3-4 days due to the severity of the infection. They are doing wound care, which means they're thoroughly cleaning and changing out his bandages often, running IV/fluids, and they have to sedate him when they change out his bandages because of the pain he's in. While we are so thankful that the doctors and nurses are doing everything they can to help him, the unexpected complications have led to medical bills that my husband and I are struggling to manage. Great Danes are a giant breed, which means they require more of everything which makes it more expensive, on top of him being at the emergency dept., which is also super expensive. I have attached photos at the top of this description that includes email exchanges with our vet, surgeon, invoices, estimates, etc.