Wednesday, April 9, 2008

More Surgery

Case #1: Do you remember this patient from an earlier post?

And the surgery removing that very large lipoma (fatty tumor) from his neck?

Well here he is recovered and sporting a much more attractive neck line!


Case #2: I thought you may find this case interesting.... What's wrong with this picture?



Case#3: And then we have this little one. I'll call it, "not a tumor...." Can you find what's wrong with this picture?




Case#4: The ugly mass on this dog's rear leg turned out to be a lymphosarcoma. A bad cancer of the lymph nodes.





Case#5: Another tumor. This one is on a female dog,she is laying on her back in the picture. Another bad one. This one was a mammary cancer.
My message here is, please don't wait too long if you notice a lump on your pet that isn't going away or continues to increase in size. Better for everyone if it can be surgically removed while small.






I wouldn't want anyone to think all I do is follow Jerry around the place taking pictures of him working. Or that I spend all of my time riding and skiing..... Sometimes I actually work. ;-)

14 comments:

Karen Deborah said...

wow Kathy are you a vet? ok what the heck happened to that dog's tongue? And please tell me that is not a burn on that poor dogs belly, cellulitis? That's the biggest lipoma I have seen. You are hitting way close to home. My dog died in October of malignant melanoma. He had a tumor in his eye. I had it excised once. My vet told me he probably had mets everywhere. I work in oncology, for people. I didn't need it spelled out. If you wanta weep you can read about my boy in some older posts. I put him down the day his tumor started bleeding and it had doubled in size. At least what we could visibly see. We could only speculate at what was going on in his brain. It almost killed me.
I'm thinking twice about quality of dog food and also my crazy boy loved the sun. It could be 104 degrees and he would go lay out in the hot sun and just soak it up. It just makes me wonder. 40% of standard poodles get some form of cancer. I still got another one that's my breed I love them.
Those are some amazing pictures.

Karen Deborah said...

ok the red belly, something has happened to the end of his penis and also it looks like a stab wound over on the left mid flank area, it looks like a scalding burn to me please tell me I'm wrong.

Anonymous said...

How sad, those poor dogs. Wonder why, owners don't take pet to vet, when they see those giant balls or bad sores, on the poor pets body. Bet the pets acted like they were sick also.

We know you do work and are very good at it also.

Jenn said...

It's always so cool when you post photos of your days at work!

The dog's tongue looks painful! What was wrapped around it?

Photo #3, I was going to guess just one testicle, but that can't be right.

Those tumors look painful, poor pups! Xanthe has a couple of fatty tumors on his side and sternum, but the vet said just to keep an eye on them and make sure they don't get bigger.

Kathy said...

Case #2= String wrapped around tonue. Owner had noticed gagging about 6 months prior but it stopped after a while. We found the string and partially amputated tongue while anesthetizing for something else. The vessels were intact so tongue worked just fine. We were amazed he coped with it as well as he did.
Case # 3 = Jenn is right, one testicle only. A cryptorchid dog. The other teste is in the abdomen, the red belly is betadine surgical prep. This neuter will be like a spay, have to go 'fishing' in the abdomen to find the 2nd teste. You can't just leave them. These tend to develope cancer if left.
Good guesses Karen!

Anonymous said...

Oh my Lord.

I was very glad to see the picture of the now well dog. I remember that post from a way back.

I am just dumbfounded that the owners of these pets let the tumors get so big. I can't wrap my mind around it.

Very interesting pictures even if they are disturbing.

I've got a question for you. Benny is 14 months and has had 5 or 6 ear infections. We put him on a duck and potato only diet (although he gets into stuff here and there or is given something by a kid) and it seemed to help but... he's got another one. The vet seems to think that he is allergic to some kind of food because we have not had a thing blooming here in months and months. He just breaks my heart when his ears are bothering him. He looks so sad and he whimpers and whines at night.

Karen Deborah said...

Ok Kathy glad to see the answer you won't believe it but I went way back in your blog tonight. I love Feather River. I am very relieved that is surgical scrub and yeah his testicles looked weird too. Removing that lipoma was a very skillful op. I saw a human delivery once that had one blocking the vaginal opening. I was a new grad nurse in L&D and every time I did an exam I kept saying, " I don't know what that is but it's not a head." It actually was a fibroma. They left it in because of potential blood loss the cowards. All I can say about the dog with the tongue is, they don't spend much time with that dog. How can you miss something like that? Poor thing.
Cool vet stories I love it. I thought you were up near lake Tahoe. LOVE the Seirras. It's os beautiful and quiet and your right the smell is heavenly. Put your man on some fresh veggie juice, preferably carrot, to help clean out his arteries. He shouldn't be working so hard already. His personality goes with the heart thing. My husband is like that too.
Tell us about the little church you found.

Laura said...

To see him healthy and recovered has got to be a treat for you. My best friend's dog had an undescended testicle, much to her husband's chagrin. The vet did offer to place fakes in after the fix but they declined.

Karen Deborah said...

Ok Kathy, you ride, you ski, and you work and you follow Jerry around. but alright already we're ready for a new post! What's new at the cabin?

Courtney said...

How sad about those tumors, but that other dog is so handsome without the mass in his neck.

BobetteBryan said...

I came across your blog when I was looking for information on lipomas, and I see that the dog in case #1 has done very well, which is reassuring.

I have a 10-year old Doberman who has numerous lipomas. He has one under his arm/on his chest that's even bigger than the one you removed from the boxer. Our vet had removed a huge lipoma from the same area about a year ago and it rapidly grew back even bigger than before. Since, he had a horrible time recovering from the last surgery, and was in considerable pain, we didn't want to put him through it again, especially at his age, unless we absolutely had to. But this past week, the tumor more than doubled in size, felt hard, and hot and suddenly he was acting like he wasn't feeling good--wouldn't eat much. We took him to the vet today and the vet said that he thought the tumor had become necrotic inside and caused an infection. Our dog's temperature was 104. He didn't think it had turned cancerous. The vet put him on Deramaxx for the pain and antibiotics, and scheduled surgery on Tuesday. But tonight, my family and I are wondering if putting him through the surgery is the best thing to do and are debating getting him put to sleep instead. The vet said the surgery would be extensive and would take at least 2 hours. He said it would be easier to remove a limb.

I'm wondering, what would you advise in a situation like this--surgery or euthanasia?

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
d_kulka@msn.com said...

I have a toy yorkie that will be 13 in may.. She had a small black tumor that the vet dismissed for about 2 years, 1 day she burst it outside and it grew 3 to 4 times its size, it bleeds, smell yeasty. The vet sd he could remove easily but checked her heart & found she had an enlarged heart. He said she could die while in surgury, if I took the risk. The tumor has grown a bit. It bleeds clean blood every now & then it has like a dry cap on top. He has not metioned doing a biopsy .. I live in Tempe AZ. & he is based here. Do i need a 2nd opinion. I would like to make things easier I definately do not want to risk her life. She is on lasik & enapril. He recently changed to lasik to disal. It has helped her cough.

Anonymous said...

hey kathy i'm studying veterinary medecine in lebanon...so as u guessed i'm lebanese :D i'm finishing my master M2 and maybe soon thinking of a PHD....do u think its better to work in the field before taking the PHD?... good luck with everything :D