he's 11 years old and will (hopefully) be turning 12 in march. i've have him since he was a kitten, running around in a house owned by my parents who refused to spay and neuter their damn cats.
overrun with animals, the cats i bonded with in their home often got taken from me in the night, driven to shelters where my abusive step mom did not allow me to say goodbye to them. on one such night, as i laid in my bed sobbing into my boyfriend's arms, this little orange kitten jumped into my lap and never left. i did not choose burger. burger chose me.
by sheer luck entirely, burger survived in my parents house as an indoor/outdoor cat, and finally i had the chance to move out and take him with me. i was able to get him his shots and microchipping, get him fixed, train him to stay indoors, and ensure his health and safety. burger is the first cat i have ever had who i was able to take proper care of, free of my parents' lackadaisical attitude toward animal welfare. he has lived happily and comfortably with me for five years now, matching my schedule to the minute and purring beside my head every single night.
a few years back burger was diagnosed with feline lower urinary tract disease, a chronic condition that can be fatal in male cats if left untreated. it's very stressful and scary to manage, i have to watch this guy piss blood sometimes and just shoot liquid meds in his mouth like it's a regular tuesday evening. i wouldn't get pet insurance until a while later, and so this pre-existing condition means i spend a lot of money on his health and comfort that i cannot get reimbursed. his medicated diet costs me $120 a month. i buy glade plugins that waft kitty xanax through the whole house. he needs pain meds daily during flare ups, and is a pro at vet trips who charms the pants off all the techs. until very recently, i lived on my own, barely scraping by in a city where rent bleeds most of the population dry. working full time and paying all my own bills, i have skipped meals to make sure cheeseburger eats. he is my world. i have never loved an animal the way that i love him.
a little over a week ago, one of his flare-ups wasn't going away. the vet suspected a urinary blockage, which can kill a male cat pretty quickly if not dealt with. operating on him would have cost me & bailey $6-8k, and none of the credit companies plus our combined savings would have paid for it. upon a second examination at the emergency vet, the news we got was better for our wallets but far worse for our hearts--it was not a blockage. it was a tumor.
i had my head in my hands just laughing in the vet's office. burger has always taken feline mirroring to a new level. several months before he started having his piss issues (pissues), i was in the ER with kidney stones. burger famously climbed up on my stomach while i was in bed writhing in pain and pissed directly on me, as if to say "wow, sucks to suck. watch how good i can piss. you wish you could piss as good as me."
instant karma, you orange bastard. we're in it together now.
now and then. i had my kidney issues, he was there a few months later pissing crystals. in may of this year i got diagnosed with cancer, up rolls burger with cancer of his own. what else can you do but laugh. that's what i told the vet.
transitional cell carcinoma is incredibly rare in cats. it's difficult to diagnose, and we're still only 99% sure that's what's going on, but the ultrasounds don't look promising. the vets have advised me to treat it as if it has been diagnosed. because there is so little information on how the cancer behaves in cats, i don't even really have a lot of information on what the future looks like. one study of 20 cats, given all kinds of treatment or lack thereof, saw the median survival after diagnosis at 261 days. i'm choosing to believe that is a highball to avoid breaking my own heart.
TCC is aggressively malignant and almost always inoperable. if untreated, it often results in a quick and unpleasant death.
there are several options for treatment. sometimes, in miracle situations, the tumour can be operated on. there's the option to get his whole bladder taken out and i can stick him in kitty diapers until he's ready to go. we can stick a catheter or a stent in him so he can pee better, it won't do anything for the tumour though. all these procedures will make him prone to infection and constant care / re-testing, most of them are invasive and uncomfortable.
right now he's on NSAIDs which have been known to have anti-tumor properties. his bloodwork is good and he is incredibly healthy in every other way. radiation therapy might be an option, but it would likely require travel and i'm not even sure they do it for cats. most of these methods have little cases to study and have only been performed or studied in detail on dogs.
the tl;dr is this: my best friend is in pain and dying slowly. i don't know how much longer i have with him. i don't have a lot to cling to as a solution here. and i really, really do not have the money for a lot of it. i don't even know what those numbers look like, and as is the case with veterinary medicine, you usually don't get a warning until they're staring you in the face. as i mentioned, i am also battling cancer right now, and while my cancer is far less aggressive, fatal, or scary, it is still expensive.
if putting him to sleep is the thing that will assuage that pain most effectively, then of course that is the choice that i will make for him. for now, though, i would like to call every oncologist i can get the number of and try to spend a little more time with cheeseburger.
below you will find our gofundme. the dollar amount contains everything that my pet insurance would not cover from burger's most recent emergency visit, complete with invoices and claim breakdowns. i will likely add to it / change it as we navigate his treatment. anything, ANYTHING helps, even if we do not reach the goal i set.
if you would like to see more pictures/videos of cheeseburger and the wonderful life i have lived with him, please check my tag. if you cannot donate to us, the most i can ask is that you help me celebrate his life, however much longer it lasts.
Here is the link to the forum! Please make sure to read the rules and guidelines to make sure everyone knows what they're signin' up for!
For any who may not know: A fandom gift exchange is almost like a secret santa where everyone has a mysterious gifter who is given info on the types of fics or art they like and then that gifter makes them something!
Sign ups close on October 23rd and you will have a little over 3 months to make your piece!
HEY UH WOULD YALL BE INTERESTED IN A SONIC GIFT EXCHANGE?
this is so impromptu i was doing event idea spit balls with my sonic server and they wanted a gift exchange and i thought why not extend that out for people on tumblr too get more activity and more availability for gifts!
would you join?
YES due date end of december
YES due date end of january
YES due date end of febuary
no interest
Voting ended onOct 5, 2025
remember whatever you choose the due date to be and whatever it becomes there will be less time for people to do their pieces
this will be primarily hosted in my discord server which is open to public but ill also make sure to have everything easily accessible on tumblr too for those who dont wanna join so no worries!
Played Sonic Riders a while back on stream, and we cooked up with chat; "Who would fit as Aladdin and Jasmine on a magic carpet ride?"
And this is the result, a fun little gag art made reality.
AND SO THE (late oops) END OF THE FIRST SONJET WEEK IS HERE
Hiya, this is Sonic [@heroictoonz] creator and head mod of Sonjet Week! I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who participated! Both the artists who contributed such lovely and fun pieces and even to those of you who reblogged and interacted with said work! You are both just as important to making this all happen! Every @ I got for a work excited me to no end and it was a blast seeing the different interpretations of the prompts as well!
Now for a quick real talk. I totally made this at the worst time. Even with giving myself and everyone else many months in advance I didn't think ahead very well about how horribly busy I always am in the summer cause of working at a hotel in a bigger city. That was on me I was just too excited to have this happen. Because of that I didn't have the time to finish any of the prompts myself (which, is fine technically, again all late entries are still counted there's not really any deadlines here cause deadlines are evil) but even so even though I started and hosted in it I didn't join which feels off. Maybe just to me but it's odd to be the person hyping everything into happening and then not joining in. If that makes sense?
Anyways, so I was thinking of changing the dates for this event closer to the winter, a time where I personally would be a lot more available. It would still have all the prompts given months in advance cause I hate when a whole prompt events only gives me a month or even less to do that much work lol
So, with that in mind, I'm gonna put out a poll sometime before the end of the week asking what people think about a date change. I want this to be a yearly thing, I love this ship and I love how much other people enjoy it too and even if there comes a day where I'm not into it as much (doubtful lol) I still wanna host this event for anyone and everyone who still wants to do it for as long as I can
On another note, I do also wanna do mini prompt events. Stuff for holidays or seasons or maybe even a gift exchange. Stuff that's just one thing and super easy but still with plenty of time in advance to work on it. I might do a full google forum for that just for more detailed responses
But, once again, thank you guys so much for doing this with me and making it possible! I was, admittedly, kinda worried cause I'd never done anything like this but it was super fun! And I def wanna do it more! And none of it could have been possible without everyone who interacted with the blog! So again a huge huge HUGE thank you for that!
I hope to see you all again soon!
Also! Special shout out to our two completionists! @regrat1704 and @takossa who did EVERY prompt day! That was super awesome and I bet a ton of work!