[Dailydrool] Need Amputation Advice!

[melissa gibson]

Celine,

I had to amputate the tail of my Hanna hound, a treeing walker who was @ 13 at 
the time. She had a big fatty cyst right at the base of her tail her whole life 
. I have had her since she was two. I had it biopsied several times over the 
years and it was always fine. But all of the sudden it just started getting 
bigger and bigger and like your dogs, burst and was seeping. It was not healing 
and she would not stop fussing with it. I didn't want her to have to wear a cone 
on her head for the rest of her life so we amputated it. It was very emotional. 
She has no tail to wag. But on a brighter note she is 16 years old and still has 
her little nub of a tail and aside from arthritis is still going strong. Best of 
luck.

Melissa



----- Original Message ----
From: Celine Rupka <rupkac at start.ca>
To: dailydrool at lists.dailydrool.org
Sent: Thu, November 1, 2012 6:17:45 PM
Subject: [Dailydrool] Need Amputation Advice!

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Hi Fellow Droolers! 

I'm looking to see if anyone has been through this situation with their 
fur-babies.  My baby, Mathilda (4-years) is prone to cysts, as some of our 
bassets are.  I have had a few of them biopsied, and they have always come back 
benign (usually as hybrid follicular cysts.)  Most of the time, they come and 
go, and every once and a while, one will rupture, we head to the vets to have it 
debrided and to get a run of antibiotics while it heals.  For about a year now, 
she has had one about halfway down her tail.  I noticed when I headed off to 
work a little over three weeks ago that it was getting larger.  By the time I 
got home, it had "blown up" and was seeping its wonderful blood/pus combination. 
 We headed off to the vet for the usual.  However, since this was a little 
larger, the vet made another incision to completely clean it out and bandaged it 
up.  We got a course of antibiotics and instructions to change the bandage every 
couple of days.

So... I have been faithfully changing the dressing every other day but the area 
just isn't healing.  There is generally blood and even little bits of either 
tissue or pus on the bandage.  She went in for a check at the one week and two 
week marks, it appeared to be getting a bit better, but as soon as you went to 
change the bandage, it would bleed a bit.  Mathilda doesn't fuss with the tail, 
still wags it like normal... only shows interest in it when I am changing the 
dressing.

Today, I took her in again to the vet, as we are now over three weeks with this. 
 She checked it out and said there now seems to be some tissue forming again. 
 Due to the fact that it isn't healing, she has recommended that we proceed with 
a partial tail amputation.  She says there just isn't enough tissue on the tail 
in the area that she can get clear enough margins around the growth and still 
have enough skin to suture the wound together.  Also, she feels there is a very 
large chance that this growth will reoccur if we try to go that route.  With the 
amputation, she said the problem area will be completely removed.

Has anyone had any experience with this sort of growth?  Or amputation of the 
tail in general?  I am fully aware that something needs to be done, however, 
amputation is a major thing!  I am trying to get in contact with her 
dermatologist to have her take a look at the area (and give me her opinion,) but 
she travels a fair bit, so I may be out of luck with that.

Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!

Celine
and Mathilda (...don't let them chop my tail off Mom!!!)