Hayley’s Fund

Our in-house fund which helps provide financial assistance to help all pets
receive access to rehabilitation and integrative therapies.

What is "Hayley's Fund"?

Hayley was Dr. Raceeta and Kevin's dog when they lived in Ontario.  She was brought in to the clinic that Raceeta worked at to be euthanized at 7 months of age because of health issues that the owners couldn't afford to look into any further.  It started with chronic diarrhea, then her nails started falling off and her feet would get infected, and she was having difficulty eating.  Thankfully, the kind vet who owned the practice didn't have the heart to euthanize such a young dog, so they took Hayley in to try to figure out what was wrong with her.  Although they didn't get any definitive answers from the initial tests that they ran, it appeared that her issues were immune-mediated, and high doses of steroids as well as antibiotics seemed to help control the symptoms.  While helping to care for Hayley over the next few months of working at the clinic, Raceeta and Kevin absolutely fell in love with her and couldn't bear to see her living in a kennel any longer, so they decided to adopt her, even though they knew she would likely have ongoing medical issues.

Over the coming months, they noticed that the muscles in her face started to waste away, and a special blood test revealed that she had an auto-immune condition, called Masticatory Muscle Myositis (or MMM for short).  This is a very painful condition when it is first starting, which is why Hayley had trouble eating, but once the muscles wasted away, it was no longer painful.  Although with no muscles to help her jaw move, Hayley was left with her mouth permanently hanging open.  One of the vets working with her at the time didn't think she would live past 2 years of age, but she adapted well.  By eating like a seagull and "gulping" her food down, she was able to swallow it, but a lot of the (veterinary prescribed) kibble would end up falling out, and eventually she needed to be hand fed in order to get enough calories into her.
Over the coming years, it was one health issue after another... a demodex mite or "mange" infection from her weakened immune system, a fractured leg (that I now suspect was from being on high doses of prednisone at such a young age, causing the bones to weaken as they were still growing), her ear tips would get crusty and bleed, digestive issues, and eventually her immune system attacked her liver.  After numerous rounds of tests, we never really did get any answers as to what was causing the issues, but it was concluded that she had a "messed up immune system that was attacking multiple systems in her body".  It is a condition so rare, that it doesn't even have a name.  The closest thing to it is Lupus, but in her particular case, multiple tests for Lupus came back negative, so it couldn't even be called that.

"Why don't you just euthanize her?" people would ask.  But what you don't know about Hayley is that in spite of all of her issues, she was the happiest dog in the world!  She didn't know any differently, and nothing seemed to phase her!  Also, given the fact that I was in vet school at the time, I thought I had access to resources and experts that could help her... and for the love of all things good, we tried.  Everyone tried!  The 3 vets at the clinic plus others we met along the way, multiple specialists at the vet school, including surgeons, radiologists, dermatologists, and internal medicine specialists.  Numerous medications and prescription diets.  You name it, if it was a part of conventional medicine we tried it!  The problem is, I didn't know then what I know now about holistic medicine.  I'm not saying that I could have cured her, but from what I have learned about integrative and holistic treatments since then, I think we could have intervened in a different way early on to support and balance her immune system.  I could have done chiropractic to help with the compensatory changes after she broke her leg, and rehab to help her regain her strength after it healed.  I could have fed her fresh whole foods, probiotics and digestive enzymes to help improve her gut health, which is the foundation of the immune system; and I could have used Chinese herbs and acupuncture to help rebalance the energy and function of her body systems.  People can drive themselves crazy with "could of's, would of's and should of's", and there's no sense in beating anyone up over the course of events and obsessing over "what ifs".  Everyone did their best with the knowledge they had at the time, and Hayley ended up living until 8 years of age - 6 years past what was expected!  I'd say we did pretty well, given the circumstances. 

We would like to honour Hayley's memory by creating a fund to help other pets in need receive access to holistic and integrative therapies.  Part of this fund will go towards educating the public about the different kinds of integrative therapies that are available, and the majority of it will go towards providing financial assistance to help those less fortunate receive access to these services.  Every dollar counts, so no matter how big or small of a donation you are able to make, we will ensure it goes to help pets in need!

Thank you for your consideration,

Dr. Raceeta & Kevin MacKenzie