Tolkien

About the Campaign

Liver Shunt Surgery

to Save His Life

One morning, Tolkien began walking into walls, drooling, and acting disoriented. When Sean returned home, Tolkien walked straight into a fence. They rushed him for testing, spending over $2,000 to find the cause. The diagnosis: an intrahepatic liver shunt.

Tolkien is a 4-month-old Irish Wolfhound with a gentle spirit and big paws he’s still growing into. A Christmas gift from Sean to his fiancée Olyvia, Tolkien quickly became the center of their lives—and now suddenly this devastating news.

Without surgery, Tolkien is unlikely to survive past his first birthday. The lifesaving procedure requires placing a stent and coil in his liver to redirect blood flow. It’s urgent and needs to happen no later than this summer. An INTRAhepatic liver shunt is “Intra”, or inside, the liver. His liver is healthy, but a blood vessel goes through the inside of the liver so that blood does not go into the liver itself. So though his liver is fine, it is not filtering his blood. The doctor has to use a highly specialized procedure to go into the liver an seal this blood vessel shut.

Olyvia and Sean are both first responders—she works for Crosby EMS and he’s a firefighter with Texas City (they live in Baytown, Texas). Olyvia is now taking less shifts, because she cannot do the 24-hour shifts she used to as she is home caring for Tokien! The cost of Tolkien’s surgery is simply too much on top of everything else.

Tolkien’s condition is treatable, and with your support, he has a strong chance at a long, healthy life. Though expensive, this surgery has a high success rate. Further, Tolkien’s family still has some credit available and has gotten some donations themselves, so they are already about 1/3 of the way there. Donations go directly to his care and veterinary costs. His full medical report, with estimate price on the last page, is in a PDF file here: TOLKIEN-Medical_b