Molly HAD cancer!

O…M…D friends! I know I haven’t been around in a really long time but I knew I had to stop by to tell you the craziest thing we’ve heard since….since….since Mom told us we were adopted!

A week ago Molly finally went for her dental and to have the mass behind her ear removed. If you’ve followed our blog, you probably know that the marble-sized mass has been there since Molly joined our family in October 2015. Every vet she saw – the vet at the shelter, the vet Three Oaks, and 3 different vets at our current vet’s office – all said the lump was more than likely a cyst. It wasn’t growing, just staying the same….EXCEPT for the one time she was on steroids and the lump shrunk down to the size of a pea, and the one time it swelled up to the size of a ping pong ball. Both times it went back to the normal, marble size.

Mom and Dad were really concerned with the mass and asked the doctor to remove it during her dental. By the way, Molly has perfectly fresh breath for the first time ever and didn’t have to have any extractions even though they estimated up to 14 extractions! Excuse me. I digress. Dr. Hamilton removed the mass and sent it for cytology just to be sure it was a cyst. Today, he got the results back and found out it was actually a mast cell tumor! A cancerous tumor, friends! My Molly! She had cancer behind her ear for at least 4 years!!!

The vet said that there was always only one kind of mast cell tumor known but now they’ve determined there are various mast cell tumors. Molly’s was the kind that is localized and not nearly as aggressive – once it’s removed, it’s gone and only has a 2% chance of coming back. Luckily, there was no infiltration of Molly’s lymph nodes and the margins looked good on her biopsy so she is cancer-free!

Mom told Dr. Hamilton she would have bet her life that the mass was a cyst because it was able to shrink, get inflamed, etc. Dr. Hamilton said he would have bet his own life that it was a cyst. He also told Mom that no matter how much experience you have, there’s always the opportunity to learn new things.

“Mom, did you tell our friends that I had CANCER?!”

“Noodle, Mom’s telling our friends I had CANCER. Don’t worry, little brother. It’s all gone now.”

“Mom, I’m really glad Molly’s going to be okay but can you please tell her I do the blog, not you?”

We hope all of you are doing well. We will try to stop by some blogs in the next week or so. We have so much stuff going on here. Maybe I’ll get Mom to help me write more blogs so we can tell you everything.