A helmet for Bambi the hydrocephalic French bulldog

Bambi is a French bulldog that was born on the 19th of October 2019. At 10 days old we knew something was a little different with our girl and after finding the right vet she was diagnosed with hydrocephalus (fluid on the brain).
The battle to save Bambi had begun, and she was the one fighting for her life. At one point, Bambi was on 7 different medications to control fluid pressure, seizures, & eye ulcers. We had to force-feed and constantly watch her. The pressure had affected many things including her vision and fine motor skills, but she never gave up. We realised that her hydro was very severe and treating medically was near impossible for her case. The only options Bambi had was PTS or shunt placement. After a lot of consideration our vet recommended to go through with the shunt placement because of how well she was coping, her 'spark,' and our ability to attend to her needs, so this is what we did. At 9 weeks old, weighing 1.9kg Bambi went into surgery and had a shunt placed into her skull through the fontanel so the fluid would be redirected into her abdomen. The surgery was a success and Bambi came along in leaps and bounds; we are so proud of her. Unfortunately, after a few months Bambi starting having severe seizures and had to have revision surgery, but again she came through. Although she has made drastic improvements, she has sustained severe brain damage from these seizures, and it has affected her depth perception, causing her to bump into objects. Bambi is now almost 18 months old; we didn’t think she would make it through surgery at 9 weeks, let alone 2 surgeries and 18 months of age and she is now 8kg ?

Due to her vision problems Bambi still headbutts everything and for that reason we have to limit her outings and interactions with other dogs for her safety. We have never asked for help for Bambi’s medical bills, surgeries, or general Bambi-maintenance, as she is our responsibility and we knew that there would be costs involved in keeping her earth-side. We have been in a position that we were able to help her. However, we are not currently in a position to buy additional 'nonessential' items that greatly benefit special-needs dogs; especially given that these items are very expensive and have to be custom made. We are hoping that we would be able to get enough money together to buy our girl a custom-made helmet to protect her open fontanel and protect her shunt. With a helmet to protect her skull we would be able to allow her to venture outside of her 'Bambi-bubble' and have more interactions with other dogs and different environments without causing unnecessary harm. Specifically, integrating Bambi into these new surroundings would promote more neural development, thus, improving her quality of life.

No doubt, there are many causes that are worthy of crowd funding and we believe that one of those worthy causes is improving Bambi's life. We are hoping that people are in a position to donate to our girl, it doesn’t matter how small, it all makes a difference – just look at Bambi; small but mighty – and changing the world.
Thank you so much for your time.
Please follow Bambi on Instagram @bamberino_

P.s. the process of the helmet to be made is as follows -
1. Postage of the casting kit from the US to AUS.
2. Bambi goes to vets to be semi-sedated and to get the cast perfectly fitted without upsetting her.
3. Cast is sent back to the US and they make Bambi’s helmet - the helmet alone is $1000 without any other costs, such as, vets, postage (express because of the current epidemic, and packaged sufficiently so no damage would be sustained),etc.
4. Helmet is carefully made from the cast.
5. The helmet is sent back to AUS and Bambi is sporting an amazing new attire thanks to the generosity of all her supporters :)

- the reason I wanted to let people know is that we don’t want anyone to think we are ripping people off when they’ve so kindly donated to us.
If there is anything left over, I can assure you we would not spend it on anything other than Bambi. We would possibly buy her a suitable raised bowl (She can’t eat off the floor) or something along these lines.