[Dailydrool] Sweet Sarah has a Cyst

[Kay, Nancy K *HS]

Our 12-year-old Sweet Sarah is one of those lumpy-bumpy bassets, and the vet has a map of her lumps (well, most of them, I think a few are missing).  Many of them have been aspirated over the years, and they've always been declared "just cysts".  The other day, Sarah started fussing with the one on her right haunch -- it must have been itching or hurting since it had grown big enough so that the skin was being stretched.  Last night, it finally opened itself up, and gurgled out some watery blood and some white cottage-cheesy looking stuff - very gross!!!  So, off to the vet we went this morning, mostly with the intention of getting some antibiotics so we wouldn't have to run to the emergency vet this coming weekend  (infections always get worse on weekends, it's the law!).

She's now on Cephalexin, with instructions to bring her back on Monday if the problem doesn't "calm down".  This growth will need to be removed at some time, I'm sure, and the vet would like to have it heal up a little bit first.  The vet cleaned it up some, told me to continue with the warm compresses, and to go ahead and let Sarah clean it, too, when she wants to.

Here's a link to a photo of Sarah's Cyst - be sure you're not eating anything when you take a look! The cyst itself is about the size of a racqet-ball, about 2 inches in diameter, and the open hole at the bottom in this thing is about an inch wide. I took the photo mainly so we'll be able to tell if it's getting better or not in the next few days.

http://www.pbase.com/notawahoo/image/103309086

Nancy, owned by Sweet Lumpy Sarah, and Frank the Tank who doesn't like the way that cyst smells!