For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Woods and my wife’s name is Missy. We have a dog named Charlie who has an aggressive tumor on his spleen. One morning, I noticed his belly was misshapen and stiff so I took him to our vet who immediately gave him just a few days to live. We were shocked and destroyed. That was over two weeks ago. Several visits later, we’ve learned that the growth is pulling nutrients and protein from the food he’s eating and it’s growing rapidly. The immediate danger is that it could burst and take him, which would be very painful and scary for him. If he showed any signs of shutting down, we would have to say our goodbyes, but there’s a lot of fight (and love) left in this dog.
That said, this thing could rupture any minute, but it turns out he’s a great candidate for surgery, so we’re taking him to get it removed this Tuesday. Naturally, we’re scared but we trust the team at Queen Village Animal Hospital to get our buddy through this ordeal. They give him great odds.
That being said, the procedure isn’t without risk, but there’s a very good chance they’ll be able to give him a gradual and dignified off-ramp on the car ride to the farm upstate in the sky, as opposed to the swift and painful alternative that could happen at a moment’s notice. Removing the mass is what's most important, but there's also a 1 in 3 chance that it's not even cancer, which means surgery would be 100% curative.
Obviously, there are many causes to donate to these days. It would mean a lot to all of us if you could throw in a couple bucks. I wouldn’t say we’re broke, but my career has taken a sabbatical and I’m not sure when it’s coming back to work. Long story. In the meantime, I’d say we’re adjacent to broke. The surgery runs around $2500 and every dollar helps.
The procedure is booked for this Tuesday March 31, but we’ll be running this fundraiser until the end of May. In the event we’re able to raise more than our goal, the rest will be donated to ACCT, the non profit animal rescue who brought us our little nutcase Ripley. But with costs everywhere going up and countless global crises to consider, we’re happy with any amount that comes in. Seriously, we love you.