Support Willow's $20k Emergency Surgery

I did not know what unconditional love was until I met Willow, aka Wiwi. She is without a doubt the best thing to have ever happened to me, and has spent the last 7 years by my side through every high and every low, for every adventure, for hundreds and hundreds of miles of walks, for camping trips and days at oceans and lakes, by my side in coffee shops and bars. We are more or less inseparable.

And, if you've met her, she's either sat in your lap or rested her giant sweet head on you. She's a big, sweet girl, she’s easy to love, and most of all she just wants to be where the people are.

On the evening of Wednesday, March 26th Willow started to vomit huge amounts of blood out of nowhere. I thought she had organ failure and was going to die, and I immediately rushed her to the closest urgent care. Her condition was stabilized with IV fluids and medicine, and they conducted x-rays and tests, suspecting Hemorrhagic gastroenteritis (HGE) (after ruling out bloat and pancreatitis).

The past 3 and a bit days have been the longest of my life, but to cut a very long story short - she was not getting any better and was transferred to a specialist who needed to perform surgery on her to remove a potential blockage and biopsy her intestines to find out if it was something more insidious or chronic that caused her to get so sick. The surgery thankfully went very well, with a layer of fatty tissue/nodules removed, and biopsies taken - but thankfully no blockage. They then worked on getting her feeling good enough to start eating and drinking on her own, and with a marked improvement released her to me this evening (Sunday, March 30th).

We are back home for her recovery waiting for the biopsy results and staying hopeful that this was just a very acute case of HGE/irritated bowels (hot girls have tummy issues) and nothing scarier.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am the last person to ever ask for help - but after several people have asked if there is a way that they can help / donate, and suggested / pushed me to consider a GoFundMe, I am swallowing my pride to admit that actually, this is financially a huge blow to me. Her vet bills for the last 4 days are over $20,000 - and her insurance has a max that will cover just over a quarter of this total. I am still getting my footing as a freelancer with an inconsistent income and while my utmost priority through this whole ordeal has been Willow's wellbeing at any cost, the financial stress is obviously - a lot.

The volume of IG messages I received from friends/former coworkers/people I met one time in a bar, rooting for her wellbeing, made an otherwise horrific experience feel that bit better, realizing how many people care about this big smelly girl and want her to live a long and healthy life.

If you would like to and are able to donate towards her urgent care and surgery, anything helps.