We first got Hades twelve years ago, just as I was finishing up my first year of university. Hades is definitely a character. Naming your dog after the God of the Underworld probably wasn't the best choice since, as many of you know, he is quite the little demon. I guess it's quite fitting you match the personality to the name when you're fated from day one with that type of name. Despite his troublemaking ways, he has become an unimaginable presence in our family's lives. Heck, my mom absolutely forbade us to get a pet until she laid eyes on him and the rest was history. Hades has become such an integral in our lives, it's hard to imagine a life without him.

This year, a large bump has been growing quickly near his butt. We went to get it checked at the vet's and they believed it to be cancerous but mentioned it would've been a fatal surgery. We decided to get a second opinion with a proper vet oncology team where they confirmed it was likely a tumor, but gave us a more positive outcome--he would likely be okay post surgery, just some minor complications that could affect his day to day afterwards. We were willing to take the risk because it would kill us if we didn't at least try, regardless of outcome. We know with age comes complications but it's every pet owners worst nightmare hearing it happen to your own pet. Hades still has so much spunk in him and we want to give that a fighting chance.

Although we have some money set aside, sometimes we can't always be as well prepared as we would like to be. The medical bills are split into two: the diagnostics and the surgery itself. The diagnostics will be all the CT scans, seeing how large the tumor is and if it's affecting anywhere else in his body. The surgery is to remove the lump. Roughly it is around 13k-15k. We've applied and received a small loan on top of some of our savings but we are still short a couple thousand.

Normally, I would hate to ask but we're not sure how to afford the rest. Really, any amount helps. We appreciate it immensely and thank you from the bottom of our hearts.