More Good Days For Miss Mila :)

Lyudmila Pupperchenko is Emet's beloved dog. She's a six-year-old pit bull/hound mix and she might as well be named Shadow because she's always stuck to Emet's side.

Mila dances for her dinner, quite literally -- she jumps and spins and grins and cavorts for whoever feeds her -- so it became very obvious that something wasn't right when she refused her dinner on Friday evening. Saturday and Sunday we convinced her to eat rice, stinky fish and mashed-up chicken, but by Monday morning she was just picking at her food rather than eating.

(Mila interrupted a NerdyKeppie photoshoot in 2020 because she was not being allowed near Emet, and clearly that is Wrong. She's so happy to be near Emet that I can't stand it.)

She's currently at the vet's and they're running bloodwork and getting ready to sedate her because she does not at all care for having her jaw touched right now. The range of what this might be runs from 'busted tooth' or 'foxtail' to 'lymphoma.' Her jaw is swollen because her salivary glands and lymph nodes in her jaw are swollen up. The good news is that the vet says her other lymph nodes aren't swollen up, so we're hopeful that it's something localized, like an infected tooth, rather than something systemic.

Our current goal will almost undoubtedly change as her treatment plan is finalized -- this amount is the quote from the vet for this stage of treatment. What they need to do is sedate our poor anxious baby, get a really good look at the inside of her mouth, and then probably fine-needle aspirate the lymph nodes and salivary glands to find out what's going on. The vet plans at this point to send her home tonight with some meds that will help her eat and rest, and hopefully we will have answers soon.

This is just a really bad time for us financially -- we have a lot of cash invested in our business right now that hasn't started paying off yet, and the money we have on hand is earmarked for things like 'paying our employees their living wage.' We appreciate any help that people can give, whether that's donating or sharing. Thank you so much for reading about our amazing girl. <3