So the bad news: Rupert, my sentient-cream-puff son, has been diagnosed with melanoma.

The good news: they think it's pretty likely to be low grade, and that with surgery (and possibly the melanoma vaccine, if he qualifies) it will be very treatable and hopefully not end up shortening his lifespan much if at all.

The bad news: veterinary oncologists are expeeeennnnsive. And thanks to a plumbing disaster, emergency car stuff, and several other unrelated vet bills all hitting in quick succession this fall, mama's savings are TAPPED TF OUT.

The good news: Rupert is not afraid to hustle and will be selling foot pics over on my IG (as one does) but I thought to be safe, I should probably start a gofundme. Just in case the dog foot pic market isn't as hoppin' as he thinks.

So...yeah. I hate asking for help, but Rupert's still having a good time here among the living and there's no money I wouldn't pay to help him out (as long as the treatment isn't worse than the disease, which in this case, it's not - some surface-level surgery, and possibly well-tolerated, low-side effect immunotherapy. No chemo or radiation is recommended.) Right now I'm putting it all on multiple credit cards but that's a dangerous place to be.

If gofundme isn't your speed but you'd like to help, the aforementioned foot pic drive is a real thing (details on my instagram), you can shop my shop , and my books are open for branding packages in february - all of which helps a ton! (And of course venmo too- @wildhuntdesign.) Gofundme won't let me repay you in anything but eternal gratitude, but you'll definitely have that (and lots of puppy pets if you want to stop by when it warms up!) Rupert's my lil dude, my pal, he's my home boy, my rotten soldier, he's my sweet cheese, my good time boy .

More details for those who want them:

About a year ago Rupert developed a mass on his lower lip. I brought it to his vet's attention multiple times but they kept assuring me that it was nothing to worry about Finally in December he was going in for a dental cleaning, so they agreed to take it off and do a biopsy since it had grown and was being irritated by his tooth. Lo and behold, it's a melanoma.

Melanoma in dogs is kind of weird- the sort that appears on their regular skin is usually benign (and Rupert does have one of those too, which the oncologist will be removing just in case.) But melanoma in their mouth or on their mucus membrane is usually super malignant and fast-moving. Rupert's was right on the border between the two. The results of the initial pathology testing (and the fact that he's still alive and well after this long) suggest that it's not a particularly aggressive lesion - he did some further scans/testing today and they didn't find anything to suggest metastasis, so that's super good. But the original removal didn't get all the edges (the "margins") of the cancer so they need to go in and take a bigger hunk out of his lip :-( as well as take the other skin spot off.

They are also going to be running some further tests on the original lesion to double check that it's not more malignant than we think. If the tests show that it is the more dangerous sort, then he qualifies for the melanoma vaccine, which is an awesome little piece of technology that you can read about here. It's new, but promising:

"Compared to surgery alone, dogs who received the ONCEPT vaccine following surgical removal of the tumor had a significant increase in survival time. So much so that the researchers were not able to calculate an exact median survival time in the vaccine trial studies. Too many of the dogs were still living at the end of the observation period to obtain correct numbers."

Unfortunately, it's $830 a dose and they have to do 4 doses initially, then a booster every 6 months.

Rough cost breakdown:

(I'll stick the receipts/estimates in an update)

Today's staging scans: $1263

Surgery (scheduled for the 18th): $5310-6079

Melanoma Vax: $3316 for initial series, $829 every six months after