Many of you know Hansel as one of the first smiling faces you see at the Lodge Room, or maybe you've met him on one of his countless other adventures. He's an absolute sweetheart who loves everyone and is always so happy to be there for you whenever you need him.

It's really hard for me to write this, but Hansel needs your help right now. Sometime in the last week, he ate a bandage from his brother Gus’s paw. It happened when I was out of the room for maybe five minutes. He seemed fine, his normal goofy self, and even came to work to greet everyone this week. But on Thursday the 17th, he started getting very lethargic and threw up what I thought was most of the bandage.

The next day (Friday the 18th), his energy was still very low, so I rushed him to the vet for X-rays. They saw an obstruction in his small intestine. He had surgery that day; they removed a tiny matted piece of bandage, and everything seemed good (no intestinal or other organ damage). I took him home, and he has mostly just been sleeping since the surgery.

This morning, though, he seemed more lethargic and less responsive than yesterday, so I rushed him to MASH. They believe the intestinal sutures may have opened and that his insides are leaking. He needs emergency surgery, this is very serious. He’s being rushed to VCA West LA to have follow-up surgery to clean up any leakage and find out what’s going on.

The first round of surgery and tests on Friday was already $5,000. The emergency visit to stabilize him today is about $1,500, and they warned me the emergency surgery could cost anywhere from $15,000 - $20,000.

I can’t come up with that kind of money. I've already financed what I could, and anything else I could possibly liquidate would take time.

If you can help, please do. The vets say everything else in this sweet boy looks good. I can’t imagine letting him go just because of money. I can’t imagine not having him around.

He needs you. If you can help, thank you from the bottom of my heart. And if you can’t, please share this with anyone who’s met him or might want to help.

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7/22 update

Hansel did not make it. The sepsis was too great and happened so insanely fast. He was taken to MASH hospital within 32 hours post original obstruction surgery and had to be rushed to VCA West LA because it was a Sunday and they were the only facility that could handle the surgery. VCA required a deposit before they would even start surgery, and it being Sunday made that extremely difficult to make that happen. As we scrambled to get the funds to even start surgery and they were giving him fluid and antibiotics to sustain, time was ticking and it was time he didn't have. I was reaching out to care credit, scratch pay, loans from friends and trying to max out any cards I could

I hate that we live in a system where you could need $20,000 immediately to save a family members life.

We're still calculating costs spent and funds needed to handle Hansel's remains.

If you feel like you would want any or your funds back please let me know and I'll see if we can refund directly through the GoFundMe platform or another medium.

If there are any extra funds they will be used to either have some sort of memorial service for Hansel, support in unforseen costs that may come up and other ways to support anyone's pets that need them immediately.

Thank you and I'm sorry if I didn't respond to everyone directly, it's very hard to even pick up my phone at the moment. I love you all, I love you Hansel and l know he loved you all too.