[Dailydrool] Tail Tumor Tale

[tcm541 at gmail.com]

Bad news for my gentle Dexter – and my budget…

 

For a couple of years, he had what we thought was a cyst about two inches long, about two inches from the end of the tail. It has never bothered him, it was soft and loose from the muscles/bones, so the vet didn’t want to mess with it, although at his last exam, she did say the best treatment if it became a problem would be to amputate the tail.  He has a number of other cysts/lumps scattered on him, mostly smaller.

 

Thanksgiving weekend I stepped on his tail. Not good – he yelped like I had just, well, you know, stepped on him or something.  A week later, the cyst ruptured and abscessed. I tried over the weekend to get it to start healing up (antibiotic ointment, bandages, cone of shame) but it wasn’t working, so the call went out to the vet. They didn’t have time to see him for days. Hmmm…that offended me somewhat. Well, okay, I was rather ticked off. I loaded Dexter in the car and took him to the emergency vet in the next town. They examined him, thought it was possible to clean/purge the cyst, treat the infection and get it to start healing, with oral antibiotics and pain meds. So we went ahead with that. Four days later, checked the progress and changed the bandage, but it didn’t look much better. After another four days, it was time to look at it again, and the vet said it wasn’t healing and would need to be amputated. (Two previous vets had said the same thing – mine, and the doctor who looked at it the first time.) 

 

Well, I just don’t think I want my adorably cute little guy to lose his tail. So I looked around again for another vet to look at it from MY perspective. And I found one. She agreed that the tail would be best served with an amputation, but she also didn’t feel that we were necessarily at that point yet. So she had their surgeon look at it and thankfully he agreed with us. There was something to try first. Here’s the problem: the alternative to amputation was to remove the cyst, but there isn’t enough skin around a tail to cut off a cyst and stich the remaining skin back together. But this surgeon said he’d give it a try.  So that’s a second major procedure in 8 days. Poor boy.

 

They sent a sample of the cyst off to be tested – turns out it was a tumor (which is probably why treating it as a cyst wasn’t working). The good news is that there is no malignancy. When the surgeon called he said he thinks the prognosis is good. I take him back Monday afternoon to take off the bandage and see if it is healing better this time. If not, we may end up losing the tail anyway despite significant amounts of money and lots of TLC having been expended.

 

So, everyone’s prayers, good thoughts, and copious amounts of drool for his healing would be greatly appreciated. 

 

Now it’s time to feed the dogs. Reggie has been whining at me for nearly an hour! Poor abused puppies…NOT! 😊

 

Tim (and the guys – Dexter & Reggie) 

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