Alice

About the Campaign

Alice is a 7-year-old female Great Pyrenees with autoimmune meningitis, an inflammation affecting the brain and spinal cord. Rebecca has already spent nearly $10,000 trying to save her, including loans and other credit, but Alice is showing signs that she is still not well. The only way to truly know the state of her health is with another spinal tap, which the neurologist has scheduled for Sept. 7th.

The spinal tap is necessary because the doctors need to know the white blood cell count in Alice’s spinal fluid before they can decide the next step in treatment. She has already had one spinal tap, MRI, specialist exams, bloodwork, X-rays, medications, and emergency care. The prednisone helped briefly, but sudden side effects hit Alice hard. She started losing weight rapidly and was struggling with weakness, coordination problems, muscle loss, and trouble using her back legs. The doctor quickly began weaning her off the prednisone almost as soon as they had started it.

This began in April, when Alice stopped acting like herself. She had always stayed close to Rebecca, lying at her feet or watching from the porch, but then she began hiding in corners. She stopped wanting to walk up the stairs. And one day, Rebecca came home to find her hiding in the bathtub, curled up and not wanting to get out.

Alice went to urgent care. They did tests, but found nothing. Rebecca’s friends told her it was probably nothing. Dogs can act weird. Maybe Alice was just getting older. Who knows? But Rebecca knew. She knew Alice, and she knew something was wrong. She kept going, next to her primary vet, where they found nothing either but the veterinarian took Rebecca seriously, and recommend further consultation with a neurologist. They suggested an MRI and a spinal tap, which is very expensive, but Rebecca knew something had to be wrong. The MRI came back clean, but then the doctor saw the spinal tap results…

Alice came into Rebecca’s life in 2020 through the Great Pyrenees Rescue Society. Rebecca had fostered the breed before and had loved a Great Pyrenees she adopted after fostering. When she saw Alice’s rescue posting, something about her story and personality stood out. Alice had been found as a stray in Houston, thin, covered in fleas and ticks, and having already had puppies despite being so young. Rebecca met the transport driver at the Castaic truck stop, and the bond was immediate.

Rebecca works as a docu-series producer and archival researcher for TV/film, and has run out of her own funds and credit to cover Alice’s quickly mounting medical bills. She has kept going through credit, loans, etc. but she now needs help to pay for Alice’s much-needed next spinal tap and possible further medications. The treatment is for medication to tamp down the body’s response and let the system heal and reset. That was what the prednisone was supposed to do, and now Alice needs an alternative, and that requires the spinal tap.

Alice’s appointment is scheduled for September 7th. Donations will help cover her second spinal tap, anesthesia, lab work, medication changes, specialist care, and follow-up treatment so her doctors can get her meningitis under control and give her the best chance to recover. All donations are paid only to the veterinarian. An estimate for the procedure is below, click to enlarge: