Keep Tarou Comfy

READ FIRST:

Dear viewer, if you are on this page, it means that have read my mini-comic. You can follow updates on the puppers on my Instagram account. Our goal for Tarou at the moment is to keep him comfortable and in as little pain as possible.

THE STORY:

In September 2021, a routine physiotherapy session for 12-year-old Tarou turned into multiple vet visits and heartbreak. His physiotherapist had found that his right front leg was abnormally swollen. We initially thought that it was due to inflammation but a fine needle aspirate result came back as "highly suspicious of cancer".

We eventually did a biopsy on that leg and found out that he had a type of soft tissue sarcoma called Liposarcoma. The results said that tumour cells had a high mitotic count, which means that it's very aggressive. That proved to be very true as the thickness of his leg doubled within 3 weeks.

Our very understanding vet told us that amputation would be the standard treatment for such a type of cancer. Soft tissue sarcomas can cling to the muscle or flesh for years, rarely metastasising. But they can grow out of control and cause great pain.

Shortly after we found out about Tarou's cancer, our other senior dog, Ichigo (14 y/o) became very ill. He had to be hospitalised twice and it really crippled our finances. He had a bout of pancreatitis, followed by chronic kidney disease, some sort of back injury, and chronic allergic rhinitis. Thankfully his health stabilised after many weeks of vet and hospital visits.

Between Ichigo's vet visits, we had initially scheduled a surgery appointment for Tarou. When the morning came, we still couldn't bring ourselves to proceed with the amputation. Reality had not sunk in for us at that time and financing the operation was also an issue. Having purchased and moved into our new home barely 9 months ago put a huge dent in our savings. We were definitely not expecting to rack up that much medical fees for both dogs at the same time.

We have currently opted to keep Tarou comfortable for as long as possible. He has 3 aggressive tumours growing on him and at least 2 suspicious lumps. He has tried 2 rounds of chemotherapy but to no avail. The 2 internal specialists which we have seen have given up on him and told us that we can only rely on pain medications until it is time to put him to sleep. However, we have decided to try Natural Killer Cell therapy, an experimental treatment that we've been told has good success in controlling cancer in dogs.

We're trying our very best to save up for his bills and not rely too much on donations. However, our friends and family have offered to chip in which is why we have created this campaign. To anyone else who would like to help out, you have our heartfelt thanks.

REWARDS:

I have enabled rewards for this campaign. For those who wish to request an art/design work, I cannot promise that you will get it on time but I will try my best to meet your expectations. To ensure transparency, I will create a post on this campaign with a waitlist that will be updated regularly.

Things that I could possibly make for you:

• Logo
• Emotes
• Stream overlays
• Drawings of your pets (I'll try)

I do have a very outdated Behance portfolio at https://www.behance.net/halosnatcher

Please note that I have not used this reward function before and I'm not too sure how you can send me your request. If you don't get any prompt to drop me a private message upon donating, please feel free to contact me via Instagram @halosnatcher.