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This story has been updated as it has progressed - contact me for the original, full story if you'd like!
Have a peek into my colorful world, and see why we love this creature with every fibre of our being.
I've put this up because I've been asked multiple times by several friends, so, with difficulty, I've swallowed my pride and put my hand up. If you have the ability to help and you'd like to do so - I'm too wrung out to argue any more, and it will be received with immense gratitude.
Give it to me - short, sweet and dirty:
Snickersaurus is 4 and a half years old, and he lives a spoilt, colorful, hilarious life with 3 opinionated cats of varying levels of psychopathy, 2 fabulously neurodivergent humans and a third human who is suspiciously very like it!
Health complications free, dogs like Snickers (aka Schlobbers) have at least a 11+ year lifespan, often more especially when crossbred.
His thyroid carcinoma is ridiculously rare in a dog this young, and the type of cancer has only a 2% representation in the types of cancer that dogs get, even more crappy odds when you consider how unusual the medullary type of tumor that it is.
Some of you may be wondering – why spend so much money on just a dog. Yeah, you love it, but you can always get another one, right? Why is Snickers family? Why have we thrown everything we have at this?
The miserable, dull furred creature who was completely shut down and unheard in the concrete corner on the day that I met him - that had been me in the past. As he ambled over, unable to see through his depressive haze, I picked him up carefully, cuddled close, and whispered to him, and my past self - "I know that black hole, I feel you. You are coming home to experience love, little one." He managed a feeble tail wag, a small lick and snuggled in, emotionally spent after just 5 minutes of meeting us.
The nights he spent wrapped in fleecy blankets, snuggled in my arms and my then 2yo daughter's arms - his lonely crying at night broke our heart. He fell in love with us as hard as we fell for him.
As a puppy, he complained voraciously about being left out of bouncing on the trampoline, and nearly exploded with joy at the discovery of bouncy floors with shiny, fascinating, foul-tasting soap bubbles – then discovering how useful trampoline safety nets are when he got the zoomies!
His greatest joy is high pitched, clear giggles of pure joy that only an animal doing something markedly ridiculous can bring from a child and the deeper, richer sound of our laughter when he knows he’s being an absolute moron and loving it.
When I failed one promising job interview after another due to then undiagnosed ADHD, he would leave his spot in the sun, his favorite toys, and come sit by my side, pawing at me and licking away the tears I was allowed to cry until my daughter came home.
When my grandfather died suddenly, I was howling with grief, rocking on my bed, he was there for me. When the nightmares, night terrors, and monsters visited me, he knew instinctively how to put his weight against me, laying full length and wrapping a paw around me until my breathing slowed and the shudders went away.
When my toes hit the sand and the work stress drained from my face in the early Saturday morning sun, he was there, diving for seagull feathers and bounding back to me to make sure I am reveling in this as much as he is.
When my daughter's day had overwhelmed her, she was exhausted from what we now know was masking – he would stretch out alongside her, rest his heavy warm head carefully on her chest and watch her lovingly as she played video games and left her sorrows behind in levels of Mario.
When you're at your limits, frustration in every line of your body and overwhelmed, Snickers would time the wet-nose nudge just right, then yowl at the resulting glare until all that could be done was laugh. He has broken up arguments, sent cups of coffee flying with irritatingly well-timed nudges under the elbow, added to virtual work meetings with his own opinionated narrative and has a consistent love/loathe relationship with the fluffy white asshole cat.
Don’t even get me started on how frustrating it was to discover that hitting him with a pillow results in a pillow fight with a 38kg Mastiff who thinks it’s playtime when all you want to do is make the goddamn bed!
And above all, he brings me to tears, daily, sniffly, emotional tears, every single time I cuddle him.
Because I’m ridiculously allergic to the furry idiot.
But honestly, how could I, after all he has done for us, the black holes he’s traveled into with us – how could I throw up my hands now and say – “good inning’s mate!” ?
It seems to me that it would be extremely disrespectful and entitled to take so much of what has had such immense impact, to abandon him in his time of need.
Just how bad is it, and why?
Because I've avoided credit cards for so long, I can't get more than my $3,500 loan at 18.99% interest due to lack of credit history.
Original expected cost to diagnose, assess and treat cancer: $9,289.6
Actual full cost: $10,742.9
Current outstanding: $7,841.69
Payments made (donations & our contributions): $ 2,901.21
Privately donated: $ 525.00
Gofundme: $1015.00 ($985.17 after fees)
In all, as at 19th October, an amazing $1,510.17 made up of your love and support has made its way to pay for his outstanding accounts.
Huh?! You say?! Let me explain.
Good news – it would have been $3,000 less. Bad news, the ICU stay really stung!
When they removed the tumor, surrounding blood vessels and lymph nodes, they were going to wait for him to recover, test the mass to find out what kind it was, then commence radioactive iodine treatment ($3,000).
Then, the secondary infection happened, and he ended up in ICU, the specialist oncologist came in on Monday to find him in ICU! She said she’d never seen an infection like that happen before!
So, he recovered, and we proceeded with pathology testing – to our surprise it showed his cancer is an unusual aggressive subset called a medullary carcinoma, the radioactive iodine can’t help with this type of cancer.
Moving forward, we’ll be keeping a very close eye on our Woofle, the 3 monthly CT/Xray/Ultrasound checkups will make sure we catch any changes if and when they occur.
If you’ve taken the time to read this, honestly, it means just as much, if not more than anything offered. Your time, attention and care is precious, and thank you for being there while we climb this mountain.
We don’t know how much longer we’ll have with our boy, but the moments you’ve given us will be treasured immensely.
Follow our journey on Instagram - @snickersaurus_rex
Have a peek into my colorful world, and see why we love this creature with every fibre of our being.
I've put this up because I've been asked multiple times by several friends, so, with difficulty, I've swallowed my pride and put my hand up. If you have the ability to help and you'd like to do so - I'm too wrung out to argue any more, and it will be received with immense gratitude.
Give it to me - short, sweet and dirty:
Snickersaurus is 4 and a half years old, and he lives a spoilt, colorful, hilarious life with 3 opinionated cats of varying levels of psychopathy, 2 fabulously neurodivergent humans and a third human who is suspiciously very like it!
Health complications free, dogs like Snickers (aka Schlobbers) have at least a 11+ year lifespan, often more especially when crossbred.
His thyroid carcinoma is ridiculously rare in a dog this young, and the type of cancer has only a 2% representation in the types of cancer that dogs get, even more crappy odds when you consider how unusual the medullary type of tumor that it is.
Some of you may be wondering – why spend so much money on just a dog. Yeah, you love it, but you can always get another one, right? Why is Snickers family? Why have we thrown everything we have at this?
The miserable, dull furred creature who was completely shut down and unheard in the concrete corner on the day that I met him - that had been me in the past. As he ambled over, unable to see through his depressive haze, I picked him up carefully, cuddled close, and whispered to him, and my past self - "I know that black hole, I feel you. You are coming home to experience love, little one." He managed a feeble tail wag, a small lick and snuggled in, emotionally spent after just 5 minutes of meeting us.
The nights he spent wrapped in fleecy blankets, snuggled in my arms and my then 2yo daughter's arms - his lonely crying at night broke our heart. He fell in love with us as hard as we fell for him.
As a puppy, he complained voraciously about being left out of bouncing on the trampoline, and nearly exploded with joy at the discovery of bouncy floors with shiny, fascinating, foul-tasting soap bubbles – then discovering how useful trampoline safety nets are when he got the zoomies!
His greatest joy is high pitched, clear giggles of pure joy that only an animal doing something markedly ridiculous can bring from a child and the deeper, richer sound of our laughter when he knows he’s being an absolute moron and loving it.
When I failed one promising job interview after another due to then undiagnosed ADHD, he would leave his spot in the sun, his favorite toys, and come sit by my side, pawing at me and licking away the tears I was allowed to cry until my daughter came home.
When my grandfather died suddenly, I was howling with grief, rocking on my bed, he was there for me. When the nightmares, night terrors, and monsters visited me, he knew instinctively how to put his weight against me, laying full length and wrapping a paw around me until my breathing slowed and the shudders went away.
When my toes hit the sand and the work stress drained from my face in the early Saturday morning sun, he was there, diving for seagull feathers and bounding back to me to make sure I am reveling in this as much as he is.
When my daughter's day had overwhelmed her, she was exhausted from what we now know was masking – he would stretch out alongside her, rest his heavy warm head carefully on her chest and watch her lovingly as she played video games and left her sorrows behind in levels of Mario.
When you're at your limits, frustration in every line of your body and overwhelmed, Snickers would time the wet-nose nudge just right, then yowl at the resulting glare until all that could be done was laugh. He has broken up arguments, sent cups of coffee flying with irritatingly well-timed nudges under the elbow, added to virtual work meetings with his own opinionated narrative and has a consistent love/loathe relationship with the fluffy white asshole cat.
Don’t even get me started on how frustrating it was to discover that hitting him with a pillow results in a pillow fight with a 38kg Mastiff who thinks it’s playtime when all you want to do is make the goddamn bed!
And above all, he brings me to tears, daily, sniffly, emotional tears, every single time I cuddle him.
Because I’m ridiculously allergic to the furry idiot.
But honestly, how could I, after all he has done for us, the black holes he’s traveled into with us – how could I throw up my hands now and say – “good inning’s mate!” ?
It seems to me that it would be extremely disrespectful and entitled to take so much of what has had such immense impact, to abandon him in his time of need.
Just how bad is it, and why?
Because I've avoided credit cards for so long, I can't get more than my $3,500 loan at 18.99% interest due to lack of credit history.
Original expected cost to diagnose, assess and treat cancer: $9,289.6
Actual full cost: $10,742.9
Current outstanding: $7,841.69
Payments made (donations & our contributions): $ 2,901.21
Privately donated: $ 525.00
Gofundme: $1015.00 ($985.17 after fees)
In all, as at 19th October, an amazing $1,510.17 made up of your love and support has made its way to pay for his outstanding accounts.
Huh?! You say?! Let me explain.
Good news – it would have been $3,000 less. Bad news, the ICU stay really stung!
When they removed the tumor, surrounding blood vessels and lymph nodes, they were going to wait for him to recover, test the mass to find out what kind it was, then commence radioactive iodine treatment ($3,000).
Then, the secondary infection happened, and he ended up in ICU, the specialist oncologist came in on Monday to find him in ICU! She said she’d never seen an infection like that happen before!
So, he recovered, and we proceeded with pathology testing – to our surprise it showed his cancer is an unusual aggressive subset called a medullary carcinoma, the radioactive iodine can’t help with this type of cancer.
Moving forward, we’ll be keeping a very close eye on our Woofle, the 3 monthly CT/Xray/Ultrasound checkups will make sure we catch any changes if and when they occur.
If you’ve taken the time to read this, honestly, it means just as much, if not more than anything offered. Your time, attention and care is precious, and thank you for being there while we climb this mountain.
We don’t know how much longer we’ll have with our boy, but the moments you’ve given us will be treasured immensely.
Follow our journey on Instagram - @snickersaurus_rex