Free and Clear

We are A-OK. Porter had fancy scans on his abdomen and x-rays of his chest. They took aspirations from his liver and spleen. The second surgery was a success and the margins of the excised tissue (the edges of what they cut out) were clean (cancer-free, meaning they cut out a big enough chunk to catch all of the tumor and its ridiculous scary tentacles). He is great. Everything looks good. Re-check in six months. Thankful is not the word.

He had stitches for 21 days and was on house arrest during those days, which proved to be the most difficult part of the ordeal for the big man. He's back to his regularly scheduled programming, though, and just spent his first day back at Bow Wow (his doggy day camp) tussling with all of his buddies.

He had a Grade II mast cell tumor with a low mitotic rate. He might have had a Grade I tumor; apparently pathologist err on the side of scaring the ever-loving crap out of you to cover their own butts and grade almost every tumor a II. Success rates for the type of treatment we did are VERY high. And, the entire thing cost less than that time he ate 9 chocolate chip cookies and the plastic container they came in.

Speaking of which, if you have a purebred puppy, I definitely recommend you buy the pet health insurance. I passed, and it would have paid for itself many times over by now if I'd just bitten the bullet back when he was little.