Never a good time..

I have found myself saying this multiple times over the last two years. Cancer will never have good timing. It usually decides the best time is when you’re already having a bad time. And yet, here we are. I just lost my dad a year ago to head & neck cancer, & now a Mast Cell Tumor invading Mia’s body left us a present after being removed.

Mia is my best friend, a boxer/lab mix with the biggest heart of anyone–human or animal–I’ve ever known. After the loss of our first child by miscarriage during my husband’s deployment, we found Mia. She was abandoned twice on our property, before we’d moved in. First by a woman who deployed & just left poor Mia there, then second by a man who was arrested & left his dog & Mia to fend for themselves with no one to look after them. We didn’t know all this when we moved in. All we knew was this dog, who was skin & bones, continued to come to our door–this dog came to us to be loved, fed, & be provided for. And that’s just what we did. We did what we could to find the owner, she was still deployed & wanted nothing to do with Mia. She admitted to being a bad pet owner & signed her over via a rescue. A month later, someone came to pick up the other dog that belonged to the previous renter (the man who’d been arrested). Mia was in our yard–as she had free reign of the doggie door, & I suspect the person had been instructed by the man to take BOTH dogs. Mia was literally stolen from us, & then dumped at the pound. I was sick over our separation. I didn’t know what to do, I panicked & called every local pound, rescue, & found her at the county doggie jail. I was there the very minute they opened & made sure she would always be safe. We moved the next month.

I already had a dog, a dachshund, who was living with my parents until we could get Mia settled with us. They instantly felt a connection & have been cuddle buddies ever since.  Since 2010, we’ve been one big happy family & they’ve gained two two-legged sisters that adore them.

After noticing Mia had a growth on her leg & one on her chest. We took her into the vet & was told that because she’d never been fixed (every time we scheduled she’d go into heat, I think she planned it 😉 ) it was a good idea to save up the money & get all three surgeries (two growth removals & a spay) done at the same time. So we saved, scraped every penny, & on March 6th, 2015 Mia had her surgery. She’s since healed well & has been mostly annoyed with her cone, which she broke this morning–we will be buying a new one today XD Mia was ridiculously proud that she was “almost free” of the cone & was ready to be done with it. We’d been instructed to keep it on for the full 6 week recovery time & that’s still the plan.

Yesterday, I received the phone call no one wants to get. Mia’s breast lump was fine, came back clean–but her leg came back as a Mast Cell Tumor (commonly MCT). And even worse, because of the size & placement they were unable & will be unable to remove all of it. The Dr gave us essentially two options. Radiation or amputation. I spent the better part of yesterday sick to my stomach. My husband is beside himself. We feel like we’ve failed her & now want to do anything within our power to turn this around. Basically, this thing will continue to regrow & spread if we don’t do something -now-. After hours and hours of searching, we realized quickly that radiation is not going to happen. It’s too far away, too much risk, & WAY out of our financial reach. So here we are, amputation. My 7 year old perfect baby girl will be undergoing all the necessary tests to assess if it has spread, & if she gets the green light, she will lose a back leg.

I’ve taken a lot of comfort knowing that she will not miss it much. Dogs aren’t as attached to limbs as we are & she won’t mourn it so long as we don’t. It is my hope that this is it & she lives a long, healthy, happy life. I’m reading blogs here (Rio, Maggie, & Roxy’s stories specifically), and they all provide comfort. Knowing we aren’t alone, this happens, & it isn’t my fault. I’m not sure how we’re going to afford this, I’m not sure what the future holds for her, but this is the path we feel is right.

She has been through everything with me. Rough pregnancies, raising two girls, my joint pain, my husband’s PTSD, losing my dad (she was his “nurse” when he visited & never left his side)… she never let me down & I will never give up on her. She has so many years left, I refuse to let cancer destroy her. We are researching, finding as many homeopathic cancer rememdies for dogs as possible to bring up to the Dr, & looking forward to her healing. <3