Mazie's Surgery

Resting after we got home Monday.
You can see the incision on her neck and back leg,
and then her left front foot is bandaged (it isn't anymore).

Sorry, I have been MIA a bit again. The last couple weeks have been a little crazy. Long story semi-short, we found a couple lumps on Mazie and took her to the vet last week to have them checked. She had gotten one before, and they tested it, and it was just fatty cyst, so we left it alone and that was that. We were hoping that would be the case this time, but after several LONG days of waiting our suspicions proved right, they were cancerous. Most everyone knows that Mazie is definitely not just a dog to us, we jokingly refer to her as our "first born," so of course we took this news very hard. We have known that Boxers are prone to cancer, and the average life span of a Boxer is 9 years bc of that (she is almost 8), but that doesn't make it any easier. So anyway, she went back Monday morning, had chest x-rays and her lymph nodes checked to make she the cancer had not traveled there (both popular places for it to go), and fortunately, they were both clean. They proceeded with surgery and took out all 3 lumps - the cancerous ones on her neck and foot and the fatty cyst on her back leg. It has been a long week of recovery taking care of her and watching her to make sure she does not scratch or lick the incisions (which are much bigger than I thought - they are each 3-4 inches long). And it was another long week of waiting for further test results on the tumors. In a nutshell, after this she should be considered a "cancer free" healthy dog, BUT we are going to have to monitor very, very closely. There is a decent chance the one on her leg will come back in some shape or form, somewhere (mostly likely the same area or the same side lymph node). The vet said it is "overall good news." Unfortunately though, that does not make me feel much better. But we are lucky and fortunate that we caught it when we did, and that is was not any worse than it was. Please keep her in your prayers though - we want a few more years out of her!