To know Tola is to love her. She’s the embodiment of joy, compassion, kindness, and loyalty—intuitive, smart, and radiating beauty. She reminds us of our connection to nature, lives for her pack, teaches the young, and enlivens the old. She’s the best aunty, sister, friend, and daughter to both humans and fellow four-leggers. Right now, her fight is for her own life, and she needs our help.
Seemingly out of nowhere, Tola received a diagnosis that has left her a shell of her normal self. Just a few weeks ago, what started as a slight limp turned into swelling and pain. Despite rest, diet changes, supplements, and medications, her condition worsened. X-rays revealed her wrist had been weakened by Osteosarcoma, a form of bone cancer. The only option to save her life is an urgent leg amputation to prevent the cancer from spreading further. Without it, her life expectancy would be both very short and very painful. Many dogs live happy lives as tripawds, and Tola’s spirit is strong enough to adapt.
Her leg amputation is just the beginning of this journey. We’re not sure what other costs will be incurred as far as medication, rehabilitation, and changes to our home and life to support her. As you can imagine, this surgery is a large medical expense, one we were not prepared for. We’ve already spent several thousand dollars on diagnostics and will likely have to spend more on her recovery and ongoing treatments.
Right now, the most important thing is to alleviate her pain, and to prevent as much pain that we can in the future. None of us gets out of here alive, but we can do things to make life here worth living. For Tola that’s being able to move around, see the people and animals she loves, smell new smells, explore new places, swim in bodies of water, and live her best wolfy life possible. We can’t imagine a future without her, and can’t help but think about how many more people could be touched by this special creature.
Through this whole experience, we are looking for the silver lining, the rainbow after the storm, the white buffalo. Maybe this is a sign that Tola’s next chapter of life is to visit others with cancer in hospitals and offer support and inspiration as a three-legged superhero? Maybe she’ll get a state-of-the-art prosthetic and prompt more discussion about causes and treatments for the rampant cancer in our human and animal world? The future isn’t certain, but we do know is that this experience is reminding us of the importance of gratitude, acceptance, rest, and healing. The world would be a better place if we all were a little more like Tola.
Any donation helps, we know it's a large goal, but we absolutely can't afford this alone. I personally am just coming out of a challenging start to my year with a car accident that left me feverishly shopping for a new car and going to 3 doctors appointments a week while caring for her as she became increasingly immobile.
If we find out the treatment is less than the amount we raise, I will gladly donate funds to a nonprofit that helps animals also dealing with a cancer diagnosis.