Kevin Moore thought his beloved pet Canada lynx, Misha, wouldn’t be around for Christmas this year.

The 20-year-old lynx survived several surgeries last year for a tumor in her sinus cavity. This year Misha underwent more surgery and five weeks of cancer treatment at the Veterinary Teaching Hospital at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington.

Moore described the outcome as nothing short of miraculous.

Misha left the clinic with restored health and a bandanna around her neck declaring, “I am a cancer survivor.”

Moore, of rural Kalispell, was thrilled to be able to pose with Misha and his dog Tucker for another holiday card. Ever since he got the lynx as a kitten in 1994, Moore has featured Misha on the Christmas photo card he sends to friends and family.

The Daily Inter Lake featured Misha during the Christmas season last year, and Moore said he believes the newspaper’s caring readers “played a small part in this year’s Christmas miracle.

“Their prayers most definitely were acknowledged and very much appreciated,” he said, adding that he received hundreds of calls from well-wishers.

During her treatment at the WSU veterinary hospital, Misha was cared for by a team of doctors that included her own oncologist and radiologist.

“She had four doctors and four medical students,” Moore said. “Now she thinks everyone is a doctor.

“Bless their hearts at that hospital,” he continued. “As a human being I’d go there for treatment. I can’t believe how talented and caring they were.”

Misha also had an unusual roommate during her hospital stay — a 102-year-old land tortoise from the San Diego Zoo.

The lynx lost a third of her body weight during the radiation treatment, but has regained the weight and is happy and eating well, Moore reported. She lost her eyesight, though, as a result of the tumor. In addition to the tumor in her head, Misha had a softball-sized tumor on her lung that was discovered during a full-body MRI and subsequently was removed.

Though blind, Misha is able to navigate every inch of her 20-by-40-foot outdoor pen.

“She’s much more trusting now after these surgeries, because she’s had to be around a lot more people,” Moore said. “She knows everybody is trying to help her.”

The medical treatment cost “an incredible amount of money,” Moore said, but it was worth it to him.

“If it bought her another year, I’d do it again,” he said. “It’s bought her nine months already.”

Moore wears a number of hats in his professional life. He’s the business manager for the nonprofit Stand Up America founded by Ret. Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely. He’s also the director of Glacier Gala, the founder of the Ultimate Submission Academies and Fight Force, president of Big Sky Mineral Resources, and he’s an art consultant and dealer in Western and wildlife art.

Every year he commissions a different artist to create a piece of artwork featuring Misha. This year Julie Chapman made a scratchboard illustration of the lynx.

Animal Planet TV network produced a feature story on Misha’s comeback that aired a month after the lynx left the WSU hospital.

Moore knows his days with Misha are numbered. A lynx’s life expectancy is similar to a domestic house cat, which can live well into its 20s. He will do everything in his power to keep Misha healthy.

“I don’t have kids; she’s my one and only,” he said. “I’ve had her for over a third of my life. She is the first living thing I hug every morning for inspiration and the last thing I hug at night. ”

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.