Lizards creep me out big-time. That’s why it’s a little hard for me to understand what 25-year-old Lizzie Griffiths, a lizard-loving school teacher from London did for her little dragon. She loves her pet lizard George so much that she wakes up at 5.30 am every day to snuggle with him for a while. She’s even postponed her wedding to be able to afford his treatment.

Lizzie and George first met at a rescue center a year ago. One look at the bearded dragon lizard, and she was in love with the way he burrowed into her neck. She took him home and cared for him, even nursing him back to health from a chest infection. Soon, the scaly creature developed a tumor on his face that wouldn’t go away after two surgeries. Fearing the loss of her favorite pet, Lizzie decided to empty her entire savings on George’s treatment. Chemotherapy for animals is a pioneering treatment and she spent over £3,000 on it at the Animal Health Trust in Suffolk. The chemo was apparently successful.

Last summer, Lizzie got engaged to 26-year-old Chris Fisher, her childhood sweetheart. But the wedding has been put on hold now. Chris doesn’t seem to mind this at all. He says that he knows he will always come in second behind the lizard and seems to be extremely comfortable with that. He says, “They definitely have a special bond and if he sits on me he will just wriggle about. But when he’s with Lizze he’s so calm, it’s like he knows she saved him.”

via This Is London