A weird thing happened to me in my twenties; I had this rare malignant breast tumor. That seems unlucky as hell, but I’m here because it was a rare kind, and because it was not metastatic–and that’s damn lucky. That experience is one I’d gladly undo; one that caused high levels of anxiety and stress to me and my entire family. I am not one of these people you will catch preaching about how an illness made me a better person.
I was already a good person with a great family and we went through hell that year. I’m just fortunate that it was a year, and now an annual MRI, and not what some people go through when cancer invades their lives. 
So when I found a mammary tumor on Idgie–an extremely common thing in an intact female dog–I had more than the typical feelings a dog owner might have. It felt familiar. It felt personal. It felt like it was happening to me all over again. Idgie has been my mirror for the past nine years; I’ve had to learn how to check myself lest my problems become her problems. We have healed so much of ourselves together and this will be the same.
So hug them tight, friends, and keep my girl in your thoughts as we await pathology.
