***UPDATE - 8/4/23***

I cannot thank you all enough. In less than 24 hours, you have all shown up for us and helped us exceed our goal. We now have enough for the surgery, PLUS for the after care, PLUS to buy the special food Lady needs to be put on to keep this from happening again. I am beyond moved by all your love and kind words. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I called her vet and Lady is officially scheduled for bladder surgery on 8/24 (it would be sooner, but because it’s a long surgery, they had to find a date to accommodate the additional time needed).

Also, because we’ve exceeded all our financial needs, we’re going to put a cap on the money for Lady at $5,000, BUT continue to collect money up to $6,000 to instead donate $100 each to other pups who need help and have been friends with Lady on Instagram. So going forward, if you would like to contribute to help other pups listed below (I’ll add more as I find them), please keep donating here OR donate to any Go Fund Me pages they may have by checking their Instagram bios.

Dogs in need (and their Instagram account):

SHOUT-OUTS:

Dog Instagram: We haven’t even met a majority of you in person and yet you all came here to support us and keep Lady healthy - even after we’ve been MIA because of life’s challenges! I knew Dog Instagram was a kind and welcoming place, but your generosity puts “human” Instagram to shame, haha. Thank you so much and we love you all! This experience, while scary and humbling, is the catalyst that is bringing us back into all your lives and hopefully, passing this same love forward to other puppers in need. Love you all, furiends! ❤️

Former Students: Thank you thank you thank you for coming here and showing love to your former high school teacher. Your generosity and compassion tell me that you all have become wonderful adults and I’m so proud of you all. Love you!

Diana: You’re the best. Literally. I don’t deserve you as my friend or nail artist, especially since I had to cancel on you this month because of all this. I promise to come back and I’ll probably start crying while I thank you over and over again while getting my nails done. I love you! ❤️❤️

***ORIGINAL POST - 8/3***

Hello,

Thank you for considering our Go Fund Me. We're Heather (me) and Dina (Moms 1 and 2), Lady, our little 6-yr. old pup, and Albee, our 12-yr. old rescue pup. We need your help to help our little Lady.

What's wrong with Lady?

Lady is a very small Miniature Schnauzer and, as a breed, are predisposed to getting bladder stones that form in their bladders because of little crystals in their urine from Magnesium or Calcium that join together and create little stones that are very hard, and (in Lady's case) can sometimes be too large to pass. Daily, I give Lady four vitamins, omega oil, a probiotic, and human-grade dog food, but even all that couldn't stop genetics, so now Lady needs surgery to remove the stones from her bladder. If she doesn't get them removed, they will continue to irritate her bladder, cause (more) blood to appear in her urine from the damage being done to her bladder walls, cause a urinary blockage, and ultimately cause her bladder to rupture. She also has to switch to a specific type of (crazy expensive) dog food that is formulated to help reduce the likelihood of more bladder stones forming.

Why we need your help:

Unfortunately, money has been difficult for me and Dina lately. I'm going up for early tenure this year, so I traveled to eight conferences during the last academic year, which took a toll on my credit cards as I waited (sometimes up to four months) for my college to reimburse me for my travel (they don't reimburse credit card interest either). I also took on four student teachers in the spring (and will have four more this fall), which significantly upped my driving and gas consumption as I drove to three different high schools in LA County and the OC, usually multiple times a week.

Dina, unfortunately, will never get her student loans forgiven since she doesn't qualify for public service loan forgiveness, so that takes a toll on her finances and, like most of us, she keeps paying her monthly payment but still hasn't put a dent in the actual loan balance because of the interest that keeps accruing. I do what I can to cover most of the household costs, but, for the first time, I owed taxes for 2022 and it was more than what I had in savings. I applied for a short extension to pay back what I owed in installments without being charged interest if I paid everything I owed within 90 days. However, all the money I had begun saving for our wedding was wiped out to make sure I could pay back my taxes within that timeframe.

So now, we have basically no savings; we have postponed our wedding indefinitely because we have no money; Albee had to have all but seven of his teeth removed because his previous owners completely neglected his dental hygiene, which cost over $4,000; and our rent increased for the first time in four years. We're having a hard time making ends meet right now and I'm not sure how we're going to pay for Lady's surgery on time without relying on our credit cards, which I'm still working to get my balance down after all that conference travel and additional costs between October 2022 - June 2023. Lady has health insurance, but, like CSULB, you're required to pay upfront, which won't help us in the meantime.

To help alleviate our financial situation, I started tutoring high school students over the summer for additional money and before that, I already had cut out any extra luxuries we used to enjoy (goodbye chiropractor; goodbye eyebrow waxing; goodbye haircuts). I've also started selling big chunks of my Disney collections online, things I've accumulated slowly since I first started working at Disneyland in 2004. Once Anniversary is over at Nordstrom, Dina is going to also start helping me earn extra money. But I'm worried the extra money we earn won't be enough or won't come fast enough for Lady to have her surgery before the bladder stones get worse.

Our family's story.

Lady was an early graduation gift from my parents (when we still spoke to one another) because I was living alone, away from all my friends and family, and attending grad school. My sweet cat, Weasley, had died two years prior and I knew I couldn't get another cat after him, so, being a Miniature Schnauzer family, my mom got me Lady to keep me company. Dina and I were dating by then and although she was afraid that Lady wouldn't like her, from day one, it was very evident that Lady loved both her two moms more than anything. At eight weeks, she weighed pi lbs. (3.14 lbs.) and could be carried in the palm of my hand. Together, we lived in the basement of a house with spiders for neighbors (and one potato bug) while I earned my Ph.D. and Dina drove 3-hours once or twice a month to visit us.

Lady is a smart little Ladybug. We had to take away the dog command buttons we were training her to use because she started manipulating the system we developed to get more treats. She does lots of different tricks, but by far her favorite is doing her "diva" pose: putting her front paws on a ledge, rock, bench, or step and looking over her shoulder at us until we take her photo. While in grad school, Lady became a little dog influencer and model, which helped me spoil her since I was working three jobs while in grad school and still barely surviving.

The day I got my job as a faculty member at CSULB, Lady and I were driving to visit Dina on the section of the freeways in LA where the 5, the 110, and the 101 all cross and if you don't merge fast enough, you end up going the opposite direction you wanted. I got the call, managed not to crash or get on the wrong freeway, and then literally turned to Lady, who was sitting in the passenger's seat in her doggie-car seat, and began sobbing, telling her, "We're not going to be poor anymore!" (I was partially wrong; we're not below poverty-level like I was in grad school, but clearly, we're still struggling, as evidenced by this Go Fund Me).

Five years ago, Dina, Lady, and I moved to Anaheim and I started my new job. A year ago, we adopted Albee and, while we were worried out only-child-since-birth-diva wouldn't like him, we can confidently say that they get along well. Albee follows her around the house and Lady checks on him when he has a coughing spell or when strange dogs come up to him in the park.

Lady is our baby and if anything happened to her because we couldn't afford this surgery on time, I will never forgive myself. We love her so much and it pains us to not be able to schedule her surgery immediately.

Every day, I try to be a humanist and support my family, friends, colleagues, and students because I believe in the power of community and community healing. I have a history of taking on the problems of my students because I want them to feel supported and know that they're not alone and that I will always do what I can to help them be successful. Those of you who know us know that Dina and I are hard workers. I worked so hard the last academic year, I made my eyeball bleed from stress and a nurse almost sent me to the ER for how high my blood pressure was during a routine check-up. Dina works absurdly hard for a company that doesn't value her expertise nearly enough, sometimes working 12-hour days despite being on salary and therefore, not compensated for her extra time and labor.

I had hoped that being a college professor would ease our financial burdens, but being in education and being at a state school in Southern California, it turns out that had I stayed a high school teacher instead of going to grad school, I would be making more money than I am now as a college professor with four degrees (and a LOT more debt). And, as some of you know, my parents and I don't speak because they chose religion over their gay daughter. My friends are my family and I need my family now, all. Please help us take care of Lady.

Neither Dina nor I like asking for help, but we're at the end of our rope. Please help us, if you're able. Please help us to make sure Lady gets the surgery she needs. Please help us just this once, friends.

Thank you, all. We appreciate you, whether you know us or not, and thank you for helping us to take care of our sweet little Lady. <3