AH HA!! The online wealth of experience has come through once again! I went and found the info and a picture and have no doubt in my mind that what JB has is indeed a Chordoma! For information on what it is and/or looks like... here is a link. http://www.afip.org/ferrets/chordoma.html A big thank you to Dr. Bruce Williams for making this type of information accessible. Not the best news in the world, but certainly better than all the horrible possibilities that were running through my mind. I guess maybe the microwave *incident* is most likely just a horrid coincidence. I also got a few lessons in the physics in how a microwave works. (Some of you out there are either brilliant geniuses or hopeless geeks *G*) But seriously... all the information helped a lot... thanks for all your kind thoughts for this little guy (he is SOOOO sweet) and I feel better now at least having some sort of base of knowledge of what we are dealing with. [Posted in FML issue 3063]