Support Audi's End-of-Life Care

Hello friends, many of you have been lucky enough to embrace the presence of Audi Bartholomew aka Audi Bart, Fart, Stinky, Little man, Perfect boy, and Tripod. If you have not, you could rest assured that Audi would have a special place for you in his heart. He loves everybody and everyone, no matter what. Audi is incredibly strong, proven so by his diligence and determination with only three legs for all 5.5 years of his life.

One week ago, on April 21st, I took Audi to Friends and Family Veterinary Care at 9:30 am. My childhood best friend, Ashley Gunter, is approaching her White Coat Ceremony at Florida University for Veterinary Medicine. She prepared me before that they would be interested in taking bloodwork and radiographs, and they did. After testing, the doctor informed me that Audi had fluid within his chest cavity and there was a suspected tumor near his heart. Ashley encouraged me to proceed with taking him to the CSU Emergency Room.

Around 11 am, Audi and I went into the center. A triage team came to check his vitals, and he was admitted. I did not get to see him again until 8 pm. Over the course of the day, I was absolutely terrified. The CSU Veterinary doctors were incredible, providing both Audi and I support throughout the entire day. Initially, they inserted a catheter in his chest and removed nearly 2 cups of fluid from his chest cavity. The doctor informed me that there was a tumor in his chest, and recommended a fluid analysis and biopsy of the tumor. He was sedated, a sample was taken, and I decided to run a CT scan of his abdomen. It was determined to be cancerous. They ran a Flow Cytometry to determine whether it was Lymphoma or Thymoma. By the end of the night, our doctor had provided me with informative papers regarding the CHOP protocol. We had initially gone to the vet for a suspected stomach ache and came out with a cancer diagnosis.

On Wednesday, April 23rd, we had our Oncology appointment at CSU. The doctor had marshmallows that Audi was thrilled about. Very gently, the doctor wrote on the whiteboard the Chemotherapy protocol. She confirmed that Audi has End-Stage T-cell Lymphoma. If you know me personally, you probably could imagine how determined I walked into that appointment, ready to do anything to save my baby. In three weeks, I am going to have a Bachelor of Science in Psychology with a Minor in Business. I am very well aware of how to read CT scans, and when I saw the size of the 14cm by 8cm tumor developed inside Audis chest, I knew it would be unethical to put him through that. Chemotherapy tends to change the temperament of animals. Audi has always been a remarkably happy companion, and I don't want to stray him from that.

With an extremely devastating decision that has torn me apart, I have decided to proceed with end-of-life care for Audi. If you are interested in donating to help with our proceeding medical costs, we would be extremely grateful. Thank you for reading.