Eddie is a 5 year old beagle and much loved member of our little family. Up until last week he could usually be found causing mischief somewhere, charming everyone with his laid-lack and loving nature. After a somewhat challenging start, he also had begun to show some real promise as an agility dog, winning out of Grade 1 and 2 towards the back end of 2018.

However, on Thursday 3rd January, Eddie suddenly fell very ill, was vomiting, lethargic, shivering and had a temperature of over 41 Degrees Celsius. We rushed him to the emergency vet who hosipitalised him and began tests to try and get to the bottom of what was wrong. Initially they could only see signs of infection and were not sure where this was coming from which was worrying. An ultrasound, X-rays and multiple blood tests failed to show what was going on, so on Saturday morning he was referred to a specialist emergency care centre in Whitefield (Manchester). It didn't take them long to discover (via CT scan) that he had Pythorax - a horrible and potentially life threatening bacterial chest infection along with some concerning blood clots around his liver and spleen and a dangerously low platelet count. He was already on antibiotics but they upped his dosage and put him under general anesthetic so they could put tubes into his chest to drain and flush out the nasty bacteria. During this risky procedure we unfortunately had another set back, upon placing the tubes one slipped and pierced his abdomen.

Fast forward a few days...and while he appeared to be recovering from the infection and they removed his chest tubes, the vets were still concerned that there was something underlying going on. We were warned about cancer but were just hoping and praying that this wasn't the case. Unfortunately, our worst fears were confirmed on Thursday evening when Eddie was confirmed to have Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia.

We still don't 100% know what this means for his prognosis and treatment as he is not a straightforward case, and we are waiting for some bone marrow results which are due back in the next week. However, although we will do anything and everything to look after our gorgeous boy, this has all understandably come at a very high financial cost. He has insurance but we are currently over double this (costs are at around £8500) and therefore,we want to raise money to ensure that he can receive the treatment he needs in the short and (hopefully) long-term to give him the best possible chance to fight this. The oncologist said he doesn't seem to know he is ill, and is confident that treatment can give him a good quality of life, hopefully for several years to come.