Coral

We rescued Coral and her brother Cruz as babies in Spring 2017, after having lived in neglect their whole lives. Cruz was healthy, but Coral faced several medical issues and needed immediate surgery to fix what first appeared as a rectal prolapse covered in maggots. We soon realized that Coral had no salvageable rectal opening at all, and were shocked that she was even still alive. Her colon had to be rerouted to her body wall and she had a new opening made for poop to come out. The surgery was extremely risky, and a veterinary first. Based off of the medical world and science, Coral shouldn't have even made it past her first surgery, haven been given little more than a 0% chance of making it. We took the risk, we struggled to get her weight to 20lbs, then almost 40lbs, and then even more! It was a miracle to watch her once brittle, matted hair to get silky, and her overall health has improve drastically. She grew bigger, stronger and is ready to dominate several surgeries afterwards. Hardly a minute passed without us tending to Coral or worrying if she needs to be cleaned up, has had her meds, needs to go in/out, if she's drank enough, if her poop hole is clogged, etc, etc. She would have several good months then an emergency in which we would have to rush her to UT to get a new surgery or fix to help her digestive motility, create a new poop hole, get ring implants, or fix dying sections of her bowel. In October 2018, we took Coral to the University of Tennessee veterinary hospital because she had been bloating lately and we figured she may have an obstruction of some sort. She was anesthetized so that vets could check out her GI tract and see what was going on, and before they could even operate, she had passed. It was a massive and unexpected blow. To say that Coral was Cruz's whole world is an understatement, and it was heartbreaking to watch him try to navigate the world without his other half. Our miracle Coral has advanced science unbelievably. Her story will be in future veterinary textbooks. There once wasn’t a successful pathway for pigs and most other farm animals and now there will be. We got more time with her than we ever expected, and that she got to live knowing love and what it meant to not be suffering is our greatest pride. Our baby will save so many lives in the future.