You Don't Know Jack

Okay, so I am going to take you back through the journey of getting our dog, Jack. There really is a reason for me telling this story. I'll fill you in at the end. When I was pregnant with Baby K we got our first dog, a miniature schnauzer named Leroy. We loved Leroy. He was a great puppy, already housebroken (and named). We could just open the door and let him out. He would run around and when we called his name, he came. But with a rough last month of pregnancy and then a new baby, we just couldn't keep Leroy. One year later, we adopted Skippyjon Jones, a teacup chihuahua. He was 1 1/2 pounds and the absolute cutest thing you could ever imagine. But with a 1 yo, a 2 yo, and a 5 yo, Skippy did not stand a chance. He was constantly dropped and thrown. I was terrified Skippy would get maimed. So Skippy had to find a new home and he found a wonderful one. (She still emails me pics and updates on Skippy). One and half years later, and after many, many months of begging my skeptical husband for another dog, he finally relented. I searched for a few weeks until I found another miniature schnauzer. We named him Jack. Now, I know that I have fussed and complained about Jack some over these last few blogging months, but we love Jack and we adore Jack. He is so much a part of this family. In fact, he laid in the bed with me and Mr. Wonderful yesterday afternoon, sleeping on his back, sharing a pillow. I'll post a picture of this later. But over the last week and a half, Jack has developed some sort of growth on his shoulder. Over the last week, it has quadrupled in size, doubling just this weekend. I took him to the vet this morning, expecting them to lance it and drain it. Only it turned out that it is a tumor. The vet thinks it may be mast cell cancer. He surgically removed the tumor and is going to examine it for trace of mast cell cancer. This is beyond upsetting to me. As is usual, Jack is my baby. He matches me step for step every where I go. Every time I lay on the couch, he jumps up and curls up with me. We have a morning routine when he wakes me up to take him out. He stands with his paws on my stomach, and we just hug and pet and scratch for a few minutes. I hope that everything turns out to be okay. I really, really hope that everything turns out okay. It's got to be okay.

P.S. I waited to post this until I heard from the vet. It was determined that the tumor was subcutaneous lymphoma, but we are awaiting a final word from the pathologist. While any kind of cancer is serious, he is showing no symptoms of the lymphoma in his lymph nodes or his organs. His shoulder was a very rare place for them to find this kind of cancer. So I will continue to hold out hope that the non-pathologist vet is wrong. But Jack does have to his benefit that he is young and in very good health otherwise. He seems to be mad at me at times, but I think he is just still recovering from surgery and being in pain. He was also neutered while he was asleep today, so that might be what he is mad about.