[lfleenor]

This past Sunday morning, I woke to the usual paw of Gigi our 3.5 pound, 10 year old intact female yorkie nudging me for a tummy rub. I was rubbing her tummy and noticed a small bump under the skin just below one of her left nipples (the second one up from her rear end). I know that it came up in a day or two at the most. She demands and gets tummy rubs on a daily basis. I called our vet Monday morning and was able to get in early that morning. Our vet performed a needle biopsy (which seemed to be painless for Gigi as I held her during the procedure). Our vet called yesterday and said that it came back malignant and the we should scheduled a mastectomy ASAP. She is scheduled for the surgery this coming Friday morning and they will also spay her at that time. Our vet says he will know how invasive the cancer is during the surgery and whether or not it has metastasized (he will also do a check x-ray prior to surgery on Friday) My partner is a pediatrician and is going to take the needle biopsy material to his hospital lab tomorrow so that a pathologist friend can double check the lab results, but in the meantime we are preparing ourselves for Friday's surgery. We are devastated as Gigi and our Oscar (11 year old male yorkie) are like our children. I'm writing this to hopefully spare other this pain. We never had any intension of breeding Gigi because of her size, but I was always afraid to have her spayed because of the anesthesia. I always thought that if she had to be put under for something else, I would have it done then, but she was always healthy so I put it off. Since her diagnosis, I have found out that if we had gotten Gigi spayed before her first heat, the chance of this cancer occurring was almost none and after her first or second heat, still a big drop in likelihood of this happening. I want to pass this along to spare others the agony that we are going through. If there are others out there whos yorkies have had mammary cancer, please let me know any insights you may have into treatment options or what worked or did not work for you. Depending on the results fo the surgical biopsies, we may consult on oncologist about chemotherapy or radiation therapy. Has anyone gone this route? Please say a prayer for Gigi (every bit of good energy will help). Thanks. Leighton