Jester's Web Page

How would you feel if one of your family members had to die because you couldn't afford medical treatment for them? Every day people have to make the decision to euthanize their family pets due to financial considerations. Whether its an accident or complication from a disease, the choice is made in many instances to put the pet down rather than to watch it suffer, all for the want of money. Some families don't even get the comfort of being able to end the suffering of their pet and must watch their beloved family member die a slow and often agonizing death because vet care is too costly. In today's world, where many people live paycheck to paycheck, sometimes just a few dollars could mean the difference between life and death. People fall on hard times, they lose jobs, have unexpected emergencies, but they shouldn't have to sentence a loved one to death just because of financial woes.

If you could find just $1 or $2 a month, less than a cup of designer coffee, you could help change the fate of a family. You can save them from the grief of having to make a decision based on money instead of love. You may think, what can my $2 a month do? Well, all on its own, maybe not much, but if you figure that ten other people out there are also giving $2, that's over $250 a year. Then imagine, a hundred people doing the same, that's over $2000 A YEAR! That kind of money will make a difference, so the next time you run out to buy a cup of coffee, think about donating the cost of just one cup a month to IMOM!

Now, let me explain why I have taken up the cause of IMOM. I was facing difficult decision of my own...

Once upon a time, my husband had a wonderful job that paid well. We thought we were ready to buy a house with a bit of land. We decided to buy a fixer-upper. We put most of our savings into the down payment and remodeling of the house. Once the bank account was very nearly tapped out, my husband became laid off. We stopped fixing the house. The lay-off lasted much longer than we ever thought it would. The unemployment was due to run out and there was no sign of work picking back up. He looked for work elsewhere. He had many interviews, but no job offers. Finally, on the day his last unemployment check came, he got a new job. The down side was that it paid about one-third of what he was used to making, of what we were used to living on, on what our entire budget system was based on. We crunched some numbers and decided that a little money was better than no money, and we could stay afloat, but just barely, as long as nothing bad happened.

Then, we discovered our dog needed surgery. He had a very painful condition called glaucoma. The pain from glaucoma is described by humans with the condition as excruciating. Red hot pokers of pain in your eyes, the worst sinus pain you've ever had magnified a hundred times. We saw a vet, the news was bad. The only way to give permanent relief was removal of the eye. The first vet gave us an estimate of over $1,000. I was shocked. My husband doesn't bring that kind of money home anymore. It would be more than an entire month's wages. They gave us a credit application at the vet's office. We applied online right away. We were declined. It came as no surprise to us, after all we had bills based on making a great deal more than we had coming in at the time.

I was heart-broken, and sick. Where would we get the money? Sitting around crying about it wasn't going to get us anywhere. I needed to think of something. Derek had done eBay auctions to get money for us in the past. We could raise some of the money that way. I really needed some support and a shoulder to cry on, so I turned to Dogster.com and the forums I was part of there. I mentioned that Jester needed the surgery, and that we were struggling to come up with a way to pay for it. I decided to mention the auction idea. I was just trying to lighten the mood of my posted message, which I thought was getting pretty depressing. I said we were going to be tearing apart closets and emptying out the garage in search of items to sell. Within hours, I had received offers of items to sell and offers to just donate money to Jesters surgery fund. I was amazed. These people, these wonderfully kind animal loving people, reached out to someone they knew nothing about, just to help ease the suffering of one poor little dog. I spent a lot of time crying over the next few weeks, as donated items and cash donations came in. I cried when I looked at my little man, laying on his pillow, clutching a toy, trying to find a way to lay his head down without it hurting. I cried every time I opened an e-mail that sent us healing thoughts or well wishes.

We finally had a few things to put up for auction. Our own items were pretty pathetic, but it was really beefed up by the donated items. I posted that the items were up, so that the people that had sent items to us could watch the progress. I got the most amazing e-mail after I posted that. A Dogster member wrote to say that she had sent out a plea to help our little man get bids on auction items because she was touched that I would give up items from my wedding to fund the surgery for my dog. Who wouldn't? If I could have found someone willing to buy one of my body parts, they could have had one! Nothing was too sacred to sell. Her effort started a flood of interest in our auction. She and a few other members also got together and started pooling bids on the tiara. I was tickled that it reached $20, when the auction closed and the bid was over $600, I was floored. The auction, that we had hoped might bring in a hundred or so dollars had made us over $1000!! We could get his surgery!! We just had to pray for no complications. We had nothing to spare for complications.

We set up a bank account just for Jester, and the fine people at Farmers National Bank (www.fnbcanfield.com), didn't even laugh when I said I needed to open an account for my dog. They were wonderful. They got us all set up with online access and everything. Derek came home and set it up so that any PayPal money could be deposited right into Jesters checking account.

My wonderful in-laws suggested that I call the vet they had just started going to, and loved. Columbiana Vet Associates (http://www.cva.vetsuite.com/custom-content.asp). The estimate they gave me was about half of what the first vet had said it would cost. (The moral of this part of the story is: Some vets charge a lot of money to furnish fancy waiting rooms and have great big new offices, and they pass that cost on to you!) I took Jester to see the Dr Urmson a few days after the auction, because of complications. Jester woke up and his eye was completely filled with blood! It was horrible to look at. I thought we had waited too long and done some sort of permanent damage to him. Dr Urmson calmed me and told me that it was just blood vessels inside the eye bleeding from the pressure, that the eye itself had not ruptured. We scheduled the surgery for the first available date he had. We had about a two week wait.

Jester is home from his surgery now as the rest of the website will show. Please take a few minutes to look it over .
We hope to have weekly updates and if all goes well, we will be posting some information about fund-raisers for IMOM! Please keep checking back. Also, while you're here, please take a moment and sign our guest book. Let us know if you would be interested in helping IMOM, or if you just dropped by to say Hi. We like both kinds of visitors! You may also want to check out some of the links we have posted. They are just some of our favorite places that we thought our visitors might enjoy!

 

To Contact Me, Click HERE (Note : Jester positively *HATES* spam, so to mess with e-mail harvesting bots, the address is slightly incorrect. Delete the SPAM from the address to get the valid one).

 

JESTER'S GUESTBOOK