Before I begin my tale (since I have a tendency to be long-winded), I should inform you that this is good news!

As you may already know, yesterday we took Dakota (http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a...../000_00782.jpg) in for surgery. Because apparently all the vets around here are putzes, we brought him to the vet he had as a puppy which is about 1 1/2 drive away. They were really nice and squeezed us in first thing in the morning (9AM). The doctor examined Dakota and, like everyone else, thought the the tumor looked very nasty and did need to be removed right off. He was worried that the tumor may've grown up and invaded the bone (which would be very very bad) and he wasn't certain he could get the whole thing out, but he was going to try. They also arranged to do dental cleaning while he was under as well as some x-rays and blood work. So we were told to leave him there until 5PM for his surgery.

About 10 minutes after we left they called to tell us that they found two lumps on his chest that worried them so they wanted to do a chest X-ray to see if he could handle anesthesia and to see if he had cancer that had spread to his organs. This was absurdly distressing, as you can imagine, and of course we let them x-ray. A few hours later they called back to say he could handle anesthesia, but that he had specks on his lungs that looked suspicious. The doctor said he'd like to have someone look at the x-rays to determine what they are and, if it was cancer, they were small enough that chemo might help. But for now the doctor was going to remove his mouth tumor. Some odd hours after that we got a call saying Dakota was in surgery that was going well so far and that we could pick him up at 5PM.

5 rolls around and we nervously waited at the vet to talk to the doctor. Once he was free, he had us look at the x-rays. Dakota's mouth tumor had not invaded the bone and we was able to remove almost all of it (the parts he couldn't were because it was in an odd area making it hard to operate on). He showed us some pictures of similar tumors (euplids) and said that Dakota was very very lucky, as the tumors often grow over the dog's teeth which would then require partial removal of the jaw. Dakota's tumor grew out before growing larger so it missed his bones and teeth. His blood work was good and showed negative for cancer. In light of the tumor being less severe than it looked and the blood work being good, the doctor suspected that the specks he saw in the x-rays may've been nothing serious (possible just small blood vessels), although he still recommended sending it to a radiologist for evaluation. And, really, $100 is a small price to pay for piece of mind (and if it is cancer, we'd know right off and have the best chance to get rid of it).
We were able to take Dakota home after that, he was zonked out on pain meds but otherwise he was good. Today its like he never even had surgery or a tumor and he's back to his old self :)

So yesterday went to being the most stressful day with bad news after bad news and then did a complete 180 and became a great day with the best news we could get. Its very likely Dakota will be perfectly fine :) I'm just so happy.

Thank you thank you thank you! This wouldn't have been at all possible without your generous donations/purchases. A lot of the decisions that were made were done on the reliance on the money I would be receiving from commissions and such. Without you guys, we couldn't have gotten this done as soon as we did, and time could well have been very important. There's absolutely no way for me to thank you as much as you deserve.

(P.S. Again, I could still use some money to pay back the loans and send his x-rays to the radiologist. So if you're still interested: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/794301/ )