It's always something...

About two weeks ago DH was hugging Diva and felt a tiny bump on her side. We immediately called the vet but they couldn't take her until this past Friday. By the time I got her in there, the bump seemed a little larger and harder.

I knew it could be something serious such as a mast cell tumor, which are common in dogs, and are usually malignant. Alice had had a bump on her muzzle that we had removed, and at that time I had done a lot of research on the Internet about tumors in dogs, so I knew it could be something bad. In Alice's case, it was benign, luckily.

Despite knowing it could be something bad, I went in to the vet's office with the expectation that she would say "Oh, it's just a little cyst, we'll do a needle aspiration and make sure." Instead, she looked at me seriously and said she "didn't like the way it looks."

Immediately freaking out, of course I wanted it removed immediately. She couldn't do it until next week, but at my suggestion she said she would call the surgeons at the Emergency & Referral veterinary clinic down the street, and see if they could remove it sooner.

In the meantime, she took x-rays and did bloodwork for an hour and I went off shopping for groceries to kill the time. I was walking around in disbelief; how could something bad happen to my dog? After what happened to Alice? I felt like crying in the middle of the supermarket. However, I managed not to.

When I returned to get Diva and hear how the x-rays looked, the vet told me everything looked pretty normal to her so that was good news. She also said they could take Diva on Monday at the other vet's.

So Diva has an appointment for tomorrow morning to be put under anesthesia and have this thing taken off her side; if it is a mast cell tumor she will have a pretty good chunk taken off around it.

Now, here's the strange part. Since she went to the vet's on Friday the bump has gotten smaller. A lot smaller. Is it like when your car makes a funny noise and you take it to the mechanic and it stops making the noise? I can just see going there and having the vet look at it and ask why I'm bothering him about this little thing?

Of course, mast cell tumors apparently can change erratically in size since they are inflammatory tumors. So I'm not counting on it being nothing just because it is smaller. But I do have hope now that it is very early and therefore curable.

To add to the stress, I have to take her to the vet tomorrow on my own. I took DH to the airport this afternoon and he is on his way to Australia. I'm supposed to fly down on Wednesday and join him. I'm hoping whatever happens tomorrow that our girl will be OK and it will be OK to leave her at the vet's to board for two weeks. I assume that it is better that she is kept quiet at the vet's than being home and running around like a nut as she usually does, after having this bump taken off...

Of course now I hear it's supposed to snow on Wednesday. All winter there has been no snow to speak of, and of course on the day I'm supposed to fly, it's now going to snow. It's always something.

However, I have a better motto than that - my mantra is, "It is what it is." Whatever happens, don't look back, just look forward and deal with it.

So that's what I'm going to do. And I'm going to stop whining now.

Oh, speaking of illnesses...new post on Medicana. Check out Myasthenia Gravis!