My parents saved up for years to get a really nice leather furniture set for the living room and were about to pull the trigger on it when the dog started having seizures.

They took the dog to the vet, and it stayed overnight and kept getting worse. In the meantime, my Mom still had to go to work, and when she got the call that Skippy needed to go to a canine neurologist near her office, she ended up calling my aunt (teacher who was home for the summer) and asked her if she could drive the dog from the vet by the house to the neurologist's office near my Mom's work as a favor.

Turns out dog neurologists are really expensive, but they'd just moved a bunch of money into their spending account to buy furniture so were able to cover it. And now my Aunt thinks my parents can casually drop 10 grand without having to call the bank first. The couch had to wait a few more years.

Skippy wasn't expected to live, but she powered through. That was in 2015, and she's still around. She has Addison's disease and has to have monthly steroid injections on top of daily steroid pills, and stress and separation anxiety are still dangerous for her, but she's a trooper. She's the biggest Chihuahua you'll ever meet due to the steroids, but it's all muscle.