The Widget vs The Big Bad C

Hi, I’m raising funds to help me help my 7yo rescue dog, Widget, fight canine lymphoma. She will be receiving treatment via the awesome doctors at NC State Veterinary Medicine’s Medical Oncology team.

Widget came to me as a short term puppy emergency foster after she was found wandering a neighborhood with a slightly older puppy friend. As a tiny, feisty 2-month-old, she was protecting and caring for her fellow puppy who had broken her leg. Once the were scooped up and admitted to South of the Bully Rescue, her friend went to medical foster, and Widget (then called Darling) came to me and my older dog Penny for what was meant to be a pit stop on her way to a forever home. Two years later, she was still with me and Penny, fitting into our lives and my small house in a way she wasn’t able to with potential adopters. My fostering volunteer days were over, but Widget was home to stay.

Since then, she’s sent me through a pandemic and numerous personal trials. Just in the last year-and-a-half, Widget has supported me through Penny’s diagnosis and quick decline and passing from osteosarcoma at 12 years old. She saw me through my mother’s illness and my uncle’s death. Simultaneously, my PI (primary investigator, aka boss) of nearly 20 years was diagnosed and passed from lung cancer. And now as I’m navigating the anxiety and uncertainty of having to leave the job and community that has been my constant for nearly two decades, I am faced with having to possible do so without my smiling, happy, wriggly girl at my side.

I would be so so very grateful for any support you can spare us as I try to get her the treatment she needs to live comfortably and happily. Cancer treatment in dogs is a touchy subject to many. But I believe that the Widget still has heaters to sit in front of, noses to lick, small dogs to army-crawl up to, and snuggles to give - and lots of ‘woo woo woos’ telling me all about all of it - before her story is finished.