Ben had his surgery this afternoon! He's in ICU at the moment, heavily sedated but doing pretty good. Dr. Bennett had to remove two molars from one side and take skin from Ben's cheek but was able to cover the entire hole. Yea! Worst case scenario is the graft won't hold but Dr. Bennett is "cautiously optimistic" that it will. Ben is one tough little boy to have endured this for so long and we already know he's a fighter so we're very optimistic also. Some of you may remember Paula Bryder's "Conan" who had a rare salivary gland mucocele in an eye socket. Dr. Bennett is the Surgeon who performed Conan's delicate surgery last year and stopped the draining into Conan's eye socket with wonderful results. He also did a biopsy on an eye lid tumor of a new little rescue I'd just taken in a few months ago. Fortunately, that one turned out to be benign and nothing dangerous. I highly recommended Dr. Bennett and the University of FL Veterinarian Teaching Hospital when you need specialized care for your fuzzies. You can browse through their hospital here: http://vetmed.ufl.edu/sacs/ Thank you, Dr. Bennett for making time for this special boy! Thanks again for all the words of encouragement, moral support and good thoughts for Ben. Keep them coming! I'm sure he knows you're are "pulling" for him. Best to all, Jackie [Posted in FML issue 2943]