Anyone who knows me, knows my other half is a sweet and sassy, 16 pound, furry little chihuahua/pug mix, named Bane (better known among me more intimate friends as @badgalbaney). When I got her 12 years ago I didn’t consider that I might have long-term travel plans later in life or aspirations that would keep me apart from her for an extended period. When you meet your pet soul mate and fall in love, you don’t think of these things. Just that you feel an immeasurable amount of love for this creature and want to give them all of the care and comfort you possibly can in the time you have together. 

Bane's other favorite human, Jason, recently stepped in to allow me to take the opportunity to follow a Paris dream, while also giving me the assurance that my girl would be properly cared for in my absence, I had to jump at this chance. But this Little Miss Bane of mine has different plans for me. She said “Oh no mama, you’re not gonna leave me for 4 months. I’m gonna throw the biggest wrench I can into your plans, so that you have to come back to me asap ”

So this lil stinker started acting funny enough to need an ER visit and the X-rays found a spot on her little lung. Today a specialist said she will indeed need the surgery for pulmonary carcinoma and maybe chemo after that. Bane knew just what she needed to do to get her mama back into her loving arms.

I’m kidding of course, no one, chug or human alike, would wish this upon themselves or anyone else, but we must embrace our fate, indeed we must find a way to even love it, according to the Stoic principle of Amor Fati. So while I don’t love the idea of leaving my couture program midway through, I will find all of the joy in seeing her face again and resuming my dog mama duties to nurse her back to health. I’ll fly home when she gets her surgery in the coming weeks and we will take it one day at a time from there. I know she is no spring chicken, but she is so full of life and spritely. It always shocks people when they hear her age! (just like her mama lol)

To get to the point of this Gofundme, of course, the cost of this endeavor is quite the number and I never imagined myself being humbled enough to ask for assistance. This amount isn't even covering the surgery, but it's all I could muster to request. I feel so selfish because if I didn’t leave a good job to go on a quest for my life’s purpose in Paris, I wouldn’t need to be asking you all now, but I have no regrets at all, in fact Baney would be proud of me for taking such a bold step :) We still fully plan to travel together to rural Manchester this fall for my tailoring apprenticeship, where we can roam the countryside to our hearts content, where she can sniff the fresh air with her patched up lung ❤️‍ Bless you, for reading this and for doing what you can to help us in this less than ideal circumstance. We will be ok no matter what, because we believe that we are not given any task that we can’t handle, chug and human alike. We love you all. Merci beaucoup ❤️‍