Help needed for Luna to beat bone cancer

Story

Within 48 hours, our world has turned upside down and our hearts are broken but first I am going to start with what a beautiful soul Luna is and how fortunate we are to love and be loved by her. Last week we had to rush Luna to the vets as she really wasn’t herself and hadn’t eaten in days. She has had bladder issues and has been up and down recently but this seemed worse. The vet (who is amazing) couldn’t work out the source of why she was so unwell and it was decided the best option would be for exploratory surgery to try and figure out the cause. Unfortunately, it was way worse than we imagined and the vet located bone cancer growing on her rib. Now we are desperately trying to raise the funds to be able to give Luna the life-saving surgery she needs and deserves if she is to have any chance. We appreciate everything so much and all the support everyone has given, and so below is a back story of this amazing dog and everything she has done for us. All we want is to give her what she deserves. When I was 21 I was diagnosed with a rare and incurable bladder disease. It was excruciatingly painful just to live life, I had to endure painful treatment each week at the hospital, some weeks requiring me to be there 4 x a week. I came from a corporate background but needing to be at the hospital this much, made holding down a job impossible. I found another part-time job near the hospital, still in marketing, but being diagnosed with something so debilitating made me really reconsider what I was doing with my life. If this was going to be it for the rest of my life, then I wanted to do what I wanted to do and that was work with dogs and help to make their lives better as they do so much for our lives. I wanted to spend the rest of my life's work based around making humans deserving of dogs. I went in for bladder surgery and whilst they were in there, they found endometriosis. Between the two of them, I was told I would unlikely have kids. So I went back to study dog psychology and then started up my passion Goin’ Muttz where I could work around my hospital commitments and still feel like I am making a difference in this world, or really the world of dogs, as much as I could considering the pain I was in. We then welcomed Luna into our heart and home and she became our home and also my business partner. Her and I are Goin’ Muttz. Together we built it as it is today and everything we have achieve we did it together. She is the face of the business, she is my superstar in all of my training videos that my clients receive, she ran classes with me as the demo dog, she worked aggressive cases with me as a neutral dog, she currently is working as a nose work dog with our goal being that Luna would do conservation work. She is my greatest teacher and I am the trainer I am because of her. I stayed on contraception just in case and well the world had other plans. I fell pregnant with Landon and we were over the moon. I was watched closely due to my disease and because I had to come off all medication. The specialist said the hormones of the pregnancy would either add fuel to the fire, but I didn’t see how that was possible as it was already pretty bad (before being pregnant they were talking about whether they would bag me), or the hormones would work a miracle. They did just that and I went into remission and have been ever since. I had Landon and the birth was horrible, both he and I ended up very sick but that is okay, we are here and thank gosh for modern medicine. Then at 9 weeks old, that is when our nightmare started all the way up until now. Landon couldn’t breathe and was completely floppy. We raced him to hospital and they sounded the alarm where any free doctor from the hospital came running. He was in resuscitation for 6 hours to stabilise him. He was so little. We nearly lost him. They said that he will have complications of this virus he caught - allergies: anaphylaxis and FPIES ✔️, Asthma ✔️, Eczema ✔️ but his little body then endured so much more. Over the next 4 years we have been in and out of hospital 24 times, a couple requiring being in resuscitation. We have an INCREDIBLE specialist team who has been amazing over the years. His immune system couldn’t fight things like you and I can, it was actually over active. A cold for you and I would mean a hospital admission for him. We had weight loss issues, where he was just losing so much weight he would be in the failure to thrive category, he was so skinny. We had gastro issues. Pain issues, he was in so much pain. Inability to control his body temperatures. One minute his blood results would come back funny, so then we would investigate further for things like holes in his kidneys, cancer, autoimmune disease, all of those awful things and we would go round and round in circles because they would come back okay again before spiking or dropping again. It was relentless, agonizing, frustrating. Then the seizures started. He started having what looked like little ones. Then they got worse. It was the day before Nick and my wedding. He wasn’t well, he didn’t eat when he woke up and as we were getting the ceremony area ready, Landon looked like he had a seizure, this one lasting more than 5 minutes. The issue being we were at my family farm and hours from a hospital with no phone reception. We raced him to hospital where he was admitted and he stabilized and had no more seizures. As we were getting married, they released us on precautions and we did get married but he was so sick for the wedding that at times we thought we would have to bail to go to the hospital but he held on for us to get through the night. Due to Landon’s health he was not allowed to attend daycare until he was over 3, and we had to be especially careful with him when covid started as his medical teams had seen what just a general cold would do. Nick luckily worked shift work and I was Landon’s full-time carer and worked in and around when Nick was home. It then looked like we must have fallen pregnant with Adaline perfectly after getting married, but she was a shock. I fell pregnant with her again off multiple contraception including the morning after pill. I had a son who was so sick and we still had no idea what was wrong with him, we were in hospital all of the time and at specialists every week. I couldn’t bring a baby into this world, how could I when every moment was caring for Landon? I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t care or love a baby and share my time. First thing we had to do was send off all genetic testing to the states as we still had no idea what we were dealing with Landon and if it was genetic. She was perfect and she was a she. Landon had a moment of wellness and for the first time I thought we could have Adaline and manage it. Our family would then be complete. Due to the costs of Landon’s medical bills, we were never going to be able to afford a place in Sydney and Nick was offered a really good promotion in Canberra. So we took it and bought a place as it was a lot more affordable. It was the day before we were moving, and Landon had another seizure, this time in the car and this time for 30 minutes. Anything over 5 minutes can start to cause brain damage. We were hospitalized for a fair amount of time and this time they diagnosed him with epilepsy even though the tests were inconclusive. They put him on seizure medication and the side efforts were horrific. He didn’t last long on it before we had to take him off. This seizure affected his speech and sleep part of the brain. He is now severely speech delayed and we are working around the clock with a speechy. From that moment he wasn’t able to sleep. Night after night is filled with screaming and after seeing a sleep specialist he is now medicated to sleep otherwise he won’t, most nights we would still be up at 5am. Being heavily pregnant with a husband on shift work and no family around made it impossible as we both needed to sleep. His specialists then noted an abnormality with his heart and he was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect. Obviously, you can’t postpone having a baby so we had to have her. Due to complications with Landon’s birth and how dangerous it was, I had no choice but to have a c-section. The birth itself was straightforward, but for months afterwards I was then in and out of hospital with post birth complications. Constant bleeding and infections. Finally I had to have surgery but again more infections. We continued to move through life, and then Adaline wasn’t meeting milestones. Her specialist was worried about her having some sort of muscle atrophy. We immediately had to start Physiotherapy before they would jump into that testing so we are still doing that now and the physio is confident she doesn’t - thank god! Then Landy went downhill again to the point of being so weak he couldn’t walk and would just collapse. He was fatigued all of the time. One minute he would have really high temperatures and then the next too low, again more hospital trips but not conclusion. This went on for 5 months. He then had another seizure and was so sick. Hospital again for quite some time and then we were sent to Sydney Children's hospital for more in-depth neuro testing. They could find no epilepsy or any physical abnormality with his brain to explain all of his symptoms. Which is great but makes no sense. So now we are calling them episodes that look like seizures with the medical teams and they have no explanations. Once we had finished, his stats looked good and we were discharged but in an hour of being discharged he went downhill again with unexplained high temps and fatigue so we ended up back in hospital. This time, all medical teams agreed they would take his tonsils and adenoids out as precautionary as they were huge (permanently touching) and they were worried for continual bacterial leakage making him so sick over the years. If he seizures and goes downhill again they will then do a spinal puncture. Since his tonsils are out. He has some moments of not well and what looks like another seizure but he picked up quickly afterwards so we are still holding off with the puncture. They still have no idea what is going on with him and it is one day at a time. While being on a bit of an up with Landon, Adaline then started to get ear infections after ear infections. She was constantly miserable and in so much pain so we now had two kids who didn’t sleep. In under six months she had 8 ear infections no longer responding to antibiotics. The risk was permanent deafness if not treated. She had to go in immediately for surgery. So that was done a couple of weeks ago and she can now hear and has started saying so many words. Through all of this, Luna has been our biggest cheerleader, biggest supporter, our constant. She knows when to wag her tail, make us laugh, rest her head, poke us to pat her, curl up next to us (when Landon is not well she would take herself to him and lay with him, she was telling us), talk to us, stick her head around any corner, follow us just to be with us, frolic around with a toy like a dag, shove her head against anyone she loved with all her might and give all of her weight to them whilst making moaning noises. She has been my biggest teacher and the most inspirational lady I have ever met. Because of Luna and everything she is, it made me realise that I will never ever be as good as a dog. So pure. So kind. So selfless. So accepting. So unconditional. She has been my medicine through the years. My sounding board. She has helped to keep me together when my world has been falling apart around me, when I have been a mum who is just doing everything in my power to keep fighting for her son and willing her son to keep fighting. With her by my side she made me think I could confront anything no matter how bad it is, no matter how empty my tank was. Anything was possible if I just had her. From all of the trauma I have seen with Landon, I am seeing a trauma psychologist, who is helping me hugely. All along Luna has been my unofficial therapy dog, and funnily, we were just about to put her through to be an actual certified therapy dog due to her nature and all of the love and help she has to give. I still need her. Anyone who meets her, falls in love with her. Everyone always jokes they are going to come and steal her when we sleep - but that would be impossible as I know she would never leave the warmth of my side no matter how tempting it would be. There is something about her soul that radiates all that you need in that moment. She has this irreplaceable magic. She offers true love. Writing this means that it is real and I am yet to accept it, it still feels like an awful nightmare I can’t wake up from and that my heart that has broken in my chest is real, begrudgingly beating in perpetual pain. It is a pain beyond what a heart should ever be confronted with. I love her beyond what words could describe. When you love a dog so purely and honestly, you know that at the same time you will almost certainly outlive them, but I didn’t expect to be confronted with this fear of losing her now. Not this soon, not this young. We still have a life ahead of us and so much to see and do together - I promised you that. My god, life is cruel and I am so sorry Luna but I will do everything in my power to fight for you, with you. No matter what I write, it will never do justice to what you mean to me. So now we get to Luna…. I was in Sydney last weekend, 19th and 20th August for class 5 & 6 of my current nose work classes. Luna seemed great except for my parents in laws noting she vomited on the Saturday but that could have been because they fed Luna their dog's food. On the Monday I then went to stay at mums with the kids until Wednesday as I had to go to RPA hospital to see the Melanoma professor as 3 months ago my the photo machine flagged so many freckles and the professor was not happy. When we arrived, Luna seemed great and was really excited to see and play with mum's dog. I scatter fed Luna on the grass Tuesday morning and when we got home Tuesday afternoon, I noted that Hope started to eat the food on the grass. I thought how weird that was as this is Luna we are talking about. She is ridiculously food driven and wouldn't leave a skerrik of food. She does do nose work after all and has a nose for detection, that will detect the tiniest bit. That night I went to feed her dinner - she normally gets this re-hydrate food that she does back flips for - but she kept trying to avoid it. I added cheese but even more aversion. I also noted that normally she drops next to Adaline's highchair and waits for me to say okay at the end so she can go and vacuum up any safe foods but she wasn't anywhere near Addie - odd! Wednesday again she didn't touch any food in the morning, we then traveled home back to Canberra. When we got home she jumped straight up on the lounge and just seemed really lethargic and flat. Normally, she will just potter around the house as my little helper and the moment I sit down, such as when I sit on the stool to bath the kids, she comes running and will curl up at my feet but she didn't move. Nick got home about 2 hours later from work and the moment Luna hear the door jiggle, she is up, running, wiggling her butt and wagging her tail at the front door with a with a big happy smile while she begs Nick to hurry up and get inside so she can make happy grunts and shut her head in-between your legs. But she didn't move. My heart sank. Something was not right. My first thought was a UTI but something in my gut said something else, something worse. She has had some bladder problems since birth which just means that she is more prone to getting UTIs. Later that night I tried to touch her tummy but she looked to be in so much pain and was so tense, she also struggled a bit to get comfy with some heavy breathing. I rang the vet as soon as they opened this past Thursday and we brought her straight in. She would walk but slowly and the moment we stopped she would just plonk down at my feet, normally using my foot as a pillow. Our vet was really concerned, as she had now not eaten in a couple of days and she was in so much pain around her abdomen. I had to hold her head as she was growling when the vet was touching and again this is Luna we are talking about. She sweetest soul with so much love to give. I had found a lump on Luna's rib that I hadn't felt before, I found it just before going to Sydney. It felt like a couple of ribs on her right side were more prominent than her ribs on her left. I noted it to the vet and she said she would look at them but right now she is more worried with how flat and lethargic Luna was and that she is not eating and is in so much pain around her abdomen. Straight away they took Luna and admitted her. As they were walking Luna to the back of the surgery as I asked the vet if she thought that she could have Cancer - my worst fear but a niggle I was getting. The vet assured me that she is a young dog and no, it is not cancer, she doesn't think it is. The worry with Luna was a kidney infection due to all of her bladder problems previously. It would explain her symptoms. They started her on fluids immediately to support and flush her kidneys and strong, broad IV antibiotics until they get the kidney cultures back that could tell us exactly what type of infection it is so we could target specific antibiotics to it. That day they did blood tests, urinalysis, x-ray, ultrasound and everything looked good except that on her bloods her white blood cells were low (which could be from stress or fighting an infection and her body using up all of them which would make sense given we were thinking it was a kidney infection) and her kidney levels were still within normal range but at the high end. She was not well enough to go home that night but with 24 hours being on antibiotics and fluids she should be a different dog tomorrow. The vet walks in the next morning and you could say that she was “perkier”, she was smoochy with the vet and was making her affectionate whimpering, growling sounds. But this is Luna, who normally sleeps curled up with me, and has just spent a night in a vet cage by herself, so no matter how sick she was I expected her to be “perkier”. She still didn’t touch any food which was a big red flag - chicken, tinned food, kibble and the vet tried to touch her abdomen again to check on the pain having now been on the strong antibiotics for nearly 24 hours but she yelped. Can I just mention that our vet is one of the most genuine, kind and caring souls you have ever met and is so knowledgeable. This is her practice and you can tell she is in this profession because she truly wants to help animals. I trust her wholeheartedly. The vet rang me concerned because by now she should be in a lot less pain. The issue we were facing is that it is now Friday. She said if it wasn’t Friday she would wait one more 24 hours to give the antibiotics just a little bit more time but because it is Friday and because of Luna’s behaviours and symptoms that she goes straight ahead and opens her up by creating a big incision from chest all the way down. This would be exploratory surgery looking for any abnormality - kidney stones that the ultrasound missed, bladder problems, kidney problems, perforation, anything. She still wasn’t well enough to go home so if we didn’t do the surgery and wanted to give her some more time we would have to be transferred to the emergency hospital for the weekend. The issue with that was that we would get a whole new medical team and there was a potential we would have to do a lot of the same tests again. We were already up to $1500, it was going to be more thousands whether we did the surgery or were transferred to emergency. The surgery would give us a definite and the best case scenario if everything looked great in there then we know that whatever she has can be managed with the antibiotics and we can ride it out. She would be okay. A couple of hours later, I was driving home from the supermarket, I got the phone call. I pulled over into a side street and I answered with “So are we smiling or not smiling”. Her response was “Look, I am definitely not smiling”. The blood drained from me. “That lump you found on her ribs, well it is not just a protruding bone, we found a 2 inch tumor attached to the bone. It looks like it is Osteosarcoma, the worst and most aggressive form of cancer a dog can get”. She is 5! The vet just kept saying how sorry she was. I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t breathe. I felt like I was suffocating. I was overlooking the Brindabellas and they normally take my breath away with how spectacular they are, but today, well I was so mad about that. I was so angry at life. How could it be so cruel? I can’t even explain the pain, it was like something was physically hurting my heart. The screams, the crying that were escaping me were from so deep inside me. I was going to vomit. The vet asked me to sit for the next half an hour and not drive, and then she had to go as she needed to put a feeding tube into Luna’s neck before she woke up for the anesthetic and we would have a big talk when we came in that afternoon. The goal was for us to take her home that night because as of that moment it looks like every moment is precious. I couldn't drive even if I wanted to and from that moment, I just can’t stop crying. When we picked Luna up, the vet said there might be a chance that it could be Chondrosarcoma which is a cartilage cancer as it can present similarly. It is not as aggressive and doesn’t mastatisize as quickly. Never in my right mind have I ever wished for cancer for anyone, but how I am hoping and wishing with all my might that it is this cancer. They took multiple biopsies and we are awaiting the confirmation of what type of cancer. It takes 4 days for it to harden so they can then shave it to put under the microscope. The results come back in 5-7 days. It is excruciating waiting, knowing this evil is still in Luna growing and there is nothing I can do. We are back to the vets on Monday to check her wounds and by then, our normal vet should have heard from the oncologist specialist vet after sending through photos of the tumor and x-rays. There is a possibility that he won’t want to wait for the results if he suspects it is Osteosarcoma to do something as time is of the essence. One of the worst parts is trying to explain to a 4 year old little boy that Luna is sick. A little boy who loves her immensely and has only ever known having her around. She has been there to play with him through his best days and to head rest and just lay with him on his worst days. Through tears, every night he keeps telling us that “she is our dog, she can’t go, Luna stays here”. I need her, but every night there is the reminder that he also needs her. 2021 we spent $30,000 on Landon’s medical bills, 2022 we spent around $40,000 for his medical. This year, I haven’t calculated but what I do know quickly is that we had a $3000 surgery at the start of the year for Landon, then Nick had to have surgery and then that was $3600, then Adaline had to have hers which was another $3000. And within two days, we had a $3995 veterinary bill for Luna. We have nothing left. I hate this. I hate needing to ask for help as I always like to be the one who offers it but Luna needs me and I need help. The next steps in her treatment are going to be astronomical monetary wise and I need to be able to give her every chance she has. This is me now fighting for her. Any dollar will be hugely appreciated and you have no idea how eternally grateful we will be. Truly thank you from the bottom of our hearts. If you share your heart and home with a special fluffy someone, please hug them tight. Please tell them how much you love them. Please be in the moment with them as time is a gift.

Donation protected

When I was 21 I was diagnosed with a rare and incurable bladder disease. It was excruciatingly painful just to live life, I had to endure painful treatment each week at the hospital, some weeks requiring me to be there 4 x a week. I came from a corporate background but needing to be at the hospital this much, made holding down a job impossible. I found another part-time job near the hospital, still in marketing, but being diagnosed with something so debilitating made me really reconsider what I was doing with my life. If this was going to be it for the rest of my life, then I wanted to do what I wanted to do and that was work with dogs and help to make their lives better as they do so much for our lives. I wanted to spend the rest of my life's work based around making humans deserving of dogs. I went in for bladder surgery and whilst they were in there, they found endometriosis. Between the two of them, I was told I would unlikely have kids. So I went back to study dog psychology and then started up my passion Goin’ Muttz where I could work around my hospital commitments and still feel like I am making a difference in this world, or really the world of dogs, as much as I could considering the pain I was in.

We then welcomed Luna into our heart and home and she became our home and also my business partner. Her and I are Goin’ Muttz. Together we built it as it is today and everything we have achieve we did it together. She is the face of the business, she is my superstar in all of my training videos that my clients receive, she ran classes with me as the demo dog, she worked aggressive cases with me as a neutral dog, she currently is working as a nose work dog with our goal being that Luna would do conservation work. She is my greatest teacher and I am the trainer I am because of her.

I stayed on contraception just in case and well the world had other plans. I fell pregnant with Landon and we were over the moon. I was watched closely due to my disease and because I had to come off all medication. The specialist said the hormones of the pregnancy would either add fuel to the fire, but I didn’t see how that was possible as it was already pretty bad (before being pregnant they were talking about whether they would bag me), or the hormones would work a miracle. They did just that and I went into remission and have been ever since. I had Landon and the birth was horrible, both he and I ended up very sick but that is okay, we are here and thank gosh for modern medicine.

Then at 9 weeks old, that is when our nightmare started all the way up until now. Landon couldn’t breathe and was completely floppy. We raced him to hospital and they sounded the alarm where any free doctor from the hospital came running. He was in resuscitation for 6 hours to stabilise him. He was so little. We nearly lost him. They said that he will have complications of this virus he caught - allergies: anaphylaxis and FPIES ✔️, Asthma ✔️, Eczema ✔️ but his little body then endured so much more. Over the next 4 years we have been in and out of hospital 24 times, a couple requiring being in resuscitation. We have an INCREDIBLE specialist team who has been amazing over the years. His immune system couldn’t fight things like you and I can, it was actually over active. A cold for you and I would mean a hospital admission for him. We had weight loss issues, where he was just losing so much weight he would be in the failure to thrive category, he was so skinny. We had gastro issues. Pain issues, he was in so much pain. Inability to control his body temperatures. One minute his blood results would come back funny, so then we would investigate further for things like holes in his kidneys, cancer, autoimmune disease, all of those awful things and we would go round and round in circles because they would come back okay again before spiking or dropping again. It was relentless, agonizing, frustrating. Then the seizures started. He started having what looked like little ones. Then they got worse. It was the day before Nick and my wedding. He wasn’t well, he didn’t eat when he woke up and as we were getting the ceremony area ready, Landon looked like he had a seizure, this one lasting more than 5 minutes. The issue being we were at my family farm and hours from a hospital with no phone reception. We raced him to hospital where he was admitted and he stabilized and had no more seizures. As we were getting married, they released us on precautions and we did get married but he was so sick for the wedding that at times we thought we would have to bail to go to the hospital but he held on for us to get through the night.

Due to Landon’s health he was not allowed to attend daycare until he was over 3, and we had to be especially careful with him when covid started as his medical teams had seen what just a general cold would do. Nick luckily worked shift work and I was Landon’s full-time carer and worked in and around when Nick was home.

It then looked like we must have fallen pregnant with Adaline perfectly after getting married, but she was a shock. I fell pregnant with her again off multiple contraception including the morning after pill. I had a son who was so sick and we still had no idea what was wrong with him, we were in hospital all of the time and at specialists every week. I couldn’t bring a baby into this world, how could I when every moment was caring for Landon? I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t care or love a baby and share my time. First thing we had to do was send off all genetic testing to the states as we still had no idea what we were dealing with Landon and if it was genetic. She was perfect and she was a she. Landon had a moment of wellness and for the first time I thought we could have Adaline and manage it. Our family would then be complete.

Due to the costs of Landon’s medical bills, we were never going to be able to afford a place in Sydney and Nick was offered a really good promotion in Canberra. So we took it and bought a place as it was a lot more affordable. It was the day before we were moving, and Landon had another seizure, this time in the car and this time for 30 minutes. Anything over 5 minutes can start to cause brain damage. We were hospitalized for a fair amount of time and this time they diagnosed him with epilepsy even though the tests were inconclusive. They put him on seizure medication and the side efforts were horrific. He didn’t last long on it before we had to take him off. This seizure affected his speech and sleep part of the brain. He is now severely speech delayed and we are working around the clock with a speechy. From that moment he wasn’t able to sleep. Night after night is filled with screaming and after seeing a sleep specialist he is now medicated to sleep otherwise he won’t, most nights we would still be up at 5am. Being heavily pregnant with a husband on shift work and no family around made it impossible as we both needed to sleep. His specialists then noted an abnormality with his heart and he was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect.

Obviously, you can’t postpone having a baby so we had to have her. Due to complications with Landon’s birth and how dangerous it was, I had no choice but to have a c-section. The birth itself was straightforward, but for months afterwards I was then in and out of hospital with post birth complications. Constant bleeding and infections. Finally I had to have surgery but again more infections.

We continued to move through life, and then Adaline wasn’t meeting milestones. Her specialist was worried about her having some sort of muscle atrophy. We immediately had to start Physiotherapy before they would jump into that testing so we are still doing that now and the physio is confident she doesn’t - thank god!

Then Landy went downhill again to the point of being so weak he couldn’t walk and would just collapse. He was fatigued all of the time. One minute he would have really high temperatures and then the next too low, again more hospital trips but not conclusion. This went on for 5 months. He then had another seizure and was so sick. Hospital again for quite some time and then we were sent to Sydney Children's hospital for more in-depth neuro testing. They could find no epilepsy or any physical abnormality with his brain to explain all of his symptoms. Which is great but makes no sense. So now we are calling them episodes that look like seizures with the medical teams and they have no explanations. Once we had finished, his stats looked good and we were discharged but in an hour of being discharged he went downhill again with unexplained high temps and fatigue so we ended up back in hospital.

This time, all medical teams agreed they would take his tonsils and adenoids out as precautionary as they were huge (permanently touching) and they were worried for continual bacterial leakage making him so sick over the years. If he seizures and goes downhill again they will then do a spinal puncture. Since his tonsils are out. He has some moments of not well and what looks like another seizure but he picked up quickly afterwards so we are still holding off with the puncture. They still have no idea what is going on with him and it is one day at a time.

While being on a bit of an up with Landon, Adaline then started to get ear infections after ear infections. She was constantly miserable and in so much pain so we now had two kids who didn’t sleep. In under six months she had 8 ear infections no longer responding to antibiotics. The risk was permanent deafness if not treated. She had to go in immediately for surgery. So that was done a couple of weeks ago and she can now hear and has started saying so many words.

Through all of this, Luna has been our biggest cheerleader, biggest supporter, our constant. She knows when to wag her tail, make us laugh, rest her head, poke us to pat her, curl up next to us (when Landon is not well she would take herself to him and lay with him, she was telling us), talk to us, stick her head around any corner, follow us just to be with us, frolic around with a toy like a dag, shove her head against anyone she loved with all her might and give all of her weight to them whilst making moaning noises. She has been my biggest teacher and the most inspirational lady I have ever met. Because of Luna and everything she is, it made me realise that I will never ever be as good as a dog. So pure. So kind. So selfless. So accepting. So unconditional.

She has been my medicine through the years. My sounding board. She has helped to keep me together when my world has been falling apart around me, when I have been a mum who is just doing everything in my power to keep fighting for her son and willing her son to keep fighting. With her by my side she made me think I could confront anything no matter how bad it is, no matter how empty my tank was. Anything was possible if I just had her.

From all of the trauma I have seen with Landon, I am seeing a trauma psychologist, who is helping me hugely. All along Luna has been my unofficial therapy dog, and funnily, we were just about to put her through to be an actual certified therapy dog due to her nature and all of the love and help she has to give. I still need her.

Anyone who meets her, falls in love with her. Everyone always jokes they are going to come and steal her when we sleep - but that would be impossible as I know she would never leave the warmth of my side no matter how tempting it would be. There is something about her soul that radiates all that you need in that moment. She has this irreplaceable magic. She offers true love.

Writing this means that it is real and I am yet to accept it, it still feels like an awful nightmare I can’t wake up from and that my heart that has broken in my chest is real, begrudgingly beating in perpetual pain. It is a pain beyond what a heart should ever be confronted with. I love her beyond what words could describe. When you love a dog so purely and honestly, you know that at the same time you will almost certainly outlive them, but I didn’t expect to be confronted with this fear of losing her now. Not this soon, not this young. We still have a life ahead of us and so much to see and do together - I promised you that. My god, life is cruel and I am so sorry Luna but I will do everything in my power to fight for you, with you.

No matter what I write, it will never do justice to what you mean to me.

So now we get to Luna….

I was in Sydney last weekend, 19th and 20th August for class 5 & 6 of my current nose work classes. Luna seemed great except for my parents in laws noting she vomited on the Saturday but that could have been because they fed Luna their dog's food. On the Monday I then went to stay at mums with the kids until Wednesday as I had to go to RPA hospital to see the Melanoma professor as 3 months ago my the photo machine flagged so many freckles and the professor was not happy. When we arrived, Luna seemed great and was really excited to see and play with mum's dog. I scatter fed Luna on the grass Tuesday morning and when we got home Tuesday afternoon, I noted that Hope started to eat the food on the grass. I thought how weird that was as this is Luna we are talking about. She is ridiculously food driven and wouldn't leave a skerrik of food. She does do nose work after all and has a nose for detection, that will detect the tiniest bit. That night I went to feed her dinner - she normally gets this re-hydrate food that she does back flips for - but she kept trying to avoid it. I added cheese but even more aversion. I also noted that normally she drops next to Adaline's highchair and waits for me to say okay at the end so she can go and vacuum up any safe foods but she wasn't anywhere near Addie - odd! Wednesday again she didn't touch any food in the morning, we then traveled home back to Canberra. When we got home she jumped straight up on the lounge and just seemed really lethargic and flat. Normally, she will just potter around the house as my little helper and the moment I sit down, such as when I sit on the stool to bath the kids, she comes running and will curl up at my feet but she didn't move. Nick got home about 2 hours later from work and the moment Luna hear the door jiggle, she is up, running, wiggling her butt and wagging her tail at the front door with a with a big happy smile while she begs Nick to hurry up and get inside so she can make happy grunts and shut her head in-between your legs. But she didn't move. My heart sank. Something was not right. My first thought was a UTI but something in my gut said something else, something worse. She has had some bladder problems since birth which just means that she is more prone to getting UTIs. Later that night I tried to touch her tummy but she looked to be in so much pain and was so tense, she also struggled a bit to get comfy with some heavy breathing.

I rang the vet as soon as they opened this past Thursday and we brought her straight in. She would walk but slowly and the moment we stopped she would just plonk down at my feet, normally using my foot as a pillow. Our vet was really concerned, as she had now not eaten in a couple of days and she was in so much pain around her abdomen. I had to hold her head as she was growling when the vet was touching and again this is Luna we are talking about. She sweetest soul with so much love to give. I had found a lump on Luna's rib that I hadn't felt before, I found it just before going to Sydney. It felt like a couple of ribs on her right side were more prominent than her ribs on her left. I noted it to the vet and she said she would look at them but right now she is more worried with how flat and lethargic Luna was and that she is not eating and is in so much pain around her abdomen. Straight away they took Luna and admitted her. As they were walking Luna to the back of the surgery as I asked the vet if she thought that she could have Cancer - my worst fear but a niggle I was getting. The vet assured me that she is a young dog and no, it is not cancer, she doesn't think it is. The worry with Luna was a kidney infection due to all of her bladder problems previously. It would explain her symptoms. They started her on fluids immediately to support and flush her kidneys and strong, broad IV antibiotics until they get the kidney cultures back that could tell us exactly what type of infection it is so we could target specific antibiotics to it. That day they did blood tests, urinalysis, x-ray, ultrasound and everything looked good except that on her bloods her white blood cells were low (which could be from stress or fighting an infection and her body using up all of them which would make sense given we were thinking it was a kidney infection) and her kidney levels were still within normal range but at the high end. She was not well enough to go home that night but with 24 hours being on antibiotics and fluids she should be a different dog tomorrow.

The vet walks in the next morning and you could say that she was “perkier”, she was smoochy with the vet and was making her affectionate whimpering, growling sounds. But this is Luna, who normally sleeps curled up with me, and has just spent a night in a vet cage by herself, so no matter how sick she was I expected her to be “perkier”. She still didn’t touch any food which was a big red flag - chicken, tinned food, kibble and the vet tried to touch her abdomen again to check on the pain having now been on the strong antibiotics for nearly 24 hours but she yelped. Can I just mention that our vet is one of the most genuine, kind and caring souls you have ever met and is so knowledgeable. This is her practice and you can tell she is in this profession because she truly wants to help animals. I trust her wholeheartedly. The vet rang me concerned because by now she should be in a lot less pain. The issue we were facing is that it is now Friday. She said if it wasn’t Friday she would wait one more 24 hours to give the antibiotics just a little bit more time but because it is Friday and because of Luna’s behaviours and symptoms that she goes straight ahead and opens her up by creating a big incision from chest all the way down. This would be exploratory surgery looking for any abnormality - kidney stones that the ultrasound missed, bladder problems, kidney problems, perforation, anything. She still wasn’t well enough to go home so if we didn’t do the surgery and wanted to give her some more time we would have to be transferred to the emergency hospital for the weekend. The issue with that was that we would get a whole new medical team and there was a potential we would have to do a lot of the same tests again. We were already up to $1500, it was going to be more thousands whether we did the surgery or were transferred to emergency. The surgery would give us a definite and the best case scenario if everything looked great in there then we know that whatever she has can be managed with the antibiotics and we can ride it out. She would be okay.

A couple of hours later, I was driving home from the supermarket, I got the phone call. I pulled over into a side street and I answered with “So are we smiling or not smiling”. Her response was “Look, I am definitely not smiling”. The blood drained from me. “That lump you found on her ribs, well it is not just a protruding bone, we found a 2 inch tumor attached to the bone. It looks like it is Osteosarcoma, the worst and most aggressive form of cancer a dog can get”. She is 5! The vet just kept saying how sorry she was. I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t breathe. I felt like I was suffocating. I was overlooking the Brindabellas and they normally take my breath away with how spectacular they are, but today, well I was so mad about that. I was so angry at life. How could it be so cruel? I can’t even explain the pain, it was like something was physically hurting my heart. The screams, the crying that were escaping me were from so deep inside me. I was going to vomit. The vet asked me to sit for the next half an hour and not drive, and then she had to go as she needed to put a feeding tube into Luna’s neck before she woke up for the anesthetic and we would have a big talk when we came in that afternoon. The goal was for us to take her home that night because as of that moment it looks like every moment is precious. I couldn't drive even if I wanted to and from that moment, I just can’t stop crying.

When we picked Luna up, the vet said there might be a chance that it could be Chondrosarcoma which is a cartilage cancer as it can present similarly. It is not as aggressive and doesn’t mastatisize as quickly. Never in my right mind have I ever wished for cancer for anyone, but how I am hoping and wishing with all my might that it is this cancer. They took multiple biopsies and we are awaiting the confirmation of what type of cancer. It takes 4 days for it to harden so they can then shave it to put under the microscope. The results come back in 5-7 days. It is excruciating waiting, knowing this evil is still in Luna growing and there is nothing I can do.

We are back to the vets on Monday to check her wounds and by then, our normal vet should have heard from the oncologist specialist vet after sending through photos of the tumor and x-rays. There is a possibility that he won’t want to wait for the results if he suspects it is Osteosarcoma to do something as time is of the essence.

One of the worst parts is trying to explain to a 4 year old little boy that Luna is sick. A little boy who loves her immensely and has only ever known having her around. She has been there to play with him through his best days and to head rest and just lay with him on his worst days. Through tears, every night he keeps telling us that “she is our dog, she can’t go, Luna stays here”. I need her, but every night there is the reminder that he also needs her.

2021 we spent $30,000 on Landon’s medical bills, 2022 we spent around $40,000 for his medical. This year, I haven’t calculated but what I do know quickly is that we had a $3000 surgery at the start of the year for Landon, then Nick had to have surgery and then that was $3600, then Adaline had to have hers which was another $3000. And within two days, we had a $3995 veterinary bill for Luna. We have nothing left.

I hate this. I hate needing to ask for help as I always like to be the one who offers it but Luna needs me and I need help. The next steps in her treatment are going to be astronomical monetary wise and I need to be able to give her every chance she has. This is me now fighting for her. Any dollar will be hugely appreciated and you have no idea how eternally grateful we will be. Truly thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

If you share your heart and home with a special fluffy someone, please hug them tight. Please tell them how much you love them. Please be in the moment with them as time is a gift.