Zoe Update

Thank you to all my sweet blog friends who left words of encouragement last week. Yesterday morning, we left the house at 6AM for a consultation at Gulf Coast Veterinary Hospital. The staff and doctors there were just wonderful and most of the news came back fairly positive.

First off, the Dr. confirmed that the Mast Cell Tumor on Zoe's right leg wasn't a very serious one. She also thought it was likely the other 2 nodules on her leg were also MCT's. She suggested having those surgically removed, but was optimistic that we had caught them very early. She checked out a few other random bumps, but they all appeared to be benign. Given Zoe's history of skin issues, the vet was encouraged that these bumps were not growing or multiplying quickly.

She also heard a heart murmur, so we decided to go ahead and have 2 chest x-rays and a puppy EKG since we were down there (hence the new hair do). It would be better to find out what type of murmur it was before putting her under sedation for the surgery. Although that report came back with Zoe having a higher grade mitral heart murmur a III/V, we also found out that her heart was still functioning normally without any enlargement.

The vet said she felt comfortable referring me back to my primary vet for the surgery. She was glad to do it, but didn't see any complicating factors that necessitated Zoe having the surgery at their fancy (expensive) offices. They will do a biopsy on the MCT's once they removed them to ensure they are localized and not spreading to adjacent tissue.

Luckily, I was able to talk with my vet later that morning and Zoe is scheduled for surgery this morning to have the 3 bumps removed. I'm traveling to Indiana tonight, so she will spend the night at the vet's office. It works out perfect, since the weekend will be pretty low-key (with me being in class again all weekend!) and I'm in town until the middle of next week.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: So glad we have a great vet & everything looks like it will be just fine.