Lightening strikes twice - What are the odds?

On June 20th, 2011, I got the call that would forever change my life.  That morning we'd taken our Abby in to have what we thought was an abscessed tooth removed.  However, when our vet called later that morning, she said they'd found no abscessed tooth, but the xray showed a large mass on her left jaw.  She drilled a hole and aspirated the mass and sent it off to have it analyzed.  Three days later we got the results.  The mass was multilobular osteosarcoma, bone cancer.   When she called and told me, I fell to pieces, sobbing on the phone.  I was so distraught I could hardly choke out words in response to her questions.  At that point I went into a frenzy, I didn't know what to do.  I thought things couldn't get any worse.

Until a small bump on Lucky started flaring up and getting a little bigger in size.  It was still relatively small (less than the diameter of a dime) and look fairly innocent, yet after our ordeal with Abby, I couldn't take any chances.  Despite my vet's "Let's just wait and see what it does," advice, I decided that it must be removed pronto.  I thought surely it was nothing, but for my piece of mind it had to be done.  I was in Raleigh with Abby visiting an oncologist at NC State when our vet called.   The tumor had been Mast Cell cancer, grade 2.  This time, I didn't cry.  I felt completely numb.  I couldn't believe this was happening with both our sweet girls at the same time.  I felt guilty for not being able to cry for Lucky because I was so emotionally drained over everything going on with Abby.  I was with a friend who was left utterly speechless.  At some point, I think I laughed hysterically. It wasn't until I picked Abby up from NC State that I lost it and cried and cried all the way home.

Abby and Lucky's stories are both completely different, and so in this blog I will address their journey's separately.  Abby's journey has been much more complex at this point, so a great deal of my posts will deal with our experiences with her.   Please do not take this to mean that I love one of my girls more than the other.  Both these dogs are my world, and having either of them taken at such a young age would be unbearable. The reason I started this blog, is in hopes that it will help someone else whose fur baby might be battling cancer.  Maybe I can answer questions, provide hope, or just let you know that you are not alone.  I met some wonderful people at dogcancercare who did that for me, and I'm just hoping to pay it forward in a small way.

Snuggling on the couch with their kitty sister Tallie