UPDATE: Unfortunately, as of Feb. 12, Sushi is no longer with us. We took her to the emergency vet and determined that there were tumors throughout her entire body, causing immense pain and leading to fluid buildup in her lungs. We let her go. Thank you to everyone who supported up. To Sushi, you are so, so loved. I miss you so much, and I would give anything to see you just one more time.

Sushi, about to turn 12 years old, is an absolute sweetheart who is well-known and well-loved in her community due to her hobbies of stealing human food from her mothers and dragging her toys to visitors in order to show them off.

Over the past two months, however, Sushi has come into some unexpected medical issues. Around December, she started favoring one of her legs. Once the cold weather hit in late January/early February, she started limping and rapidly losing weight. As of Feb. 10, Sushi has lost 30% of her body weight. After several vet visits, we have determined that Sushi is suffering from one of two possible issues: a severe brachial plexus injury or a very rare brachial plexus nerve sheath tumor. In order to determine the best course of treatment to keep Sushi as happy and as comfortable as possible, we will need to get her an MRI. If the MRI shows that her problems are due to a severe injury, we will take whatever steps we can to get her back on her feet. If the answer is cancer, then we will keep her as comfortable as we can until it's time to say goodbye.

We want to provide the best possible care for Sushi as we can while still being practical. As graduate students, neither of us can afford extensive specialized treatment for her, but we want to give it our best shot. We've already accumulated $400 in medical bills so far and anticipate anywhere from $1000-$3000 for her MRI. Our initial goal of $5000 is an estimate for the combined cost for her initial treatment, MRI, and potential costs for any limb rehabilitation and/or amputation or palliative care to keep her as happy as she can be. Once we get the results back from this MRI, we'll update this page with a more accurate number of Sushi's vet costs.

We love Sushi so very much and want to do whatever we can to alleviate her pain right now. I've raised Sushi since she was a kitten, and I am willing to let her go if needed, but I want to make sure her (possible) last year is as painless as can be. Any support truly would mean the world to us and our tiny family.