I took the dog to the vet today to check out several things. For one, she has this sore beside her ear, a dime-sized lump, that she's been scratching at all weekend. She also has these bumps on her belly, and she's been obsessively licking and biting at her paws. The vet thinks she has allergies, and the discoloration around her mouth and on her paws is caused by her saliva. So he precribed benadryl.
More worrisome, the spots and dry skin on her belly are from a staph infection. He gave me some antibiotics to try to clear it up, and some antibiotic shampoo.
But the worst news is about the lump beside her ear. It's some sort of mass, and I have to take her in for surgery tomorrow to remove it and find out what it is. It could be from the allergies and stress, the vet said. Or, worse, it could be a cancerous tumor. They're going to remove it tomorrow and have it tested and let me know, and, as the vet said, "if it is cancer, we'll take it from there."
So now I'm upset and on the verge of tears because the dog we just got a week and a half ago may have cancer. And Erika comes home from work around 4:30, from her first day working since having her surgery, and she has to work an eight-hour shift, so she's going to be tired and depressed and in pain, and then I have to tell her the dog she's already fallen in love with may have cancer. I know she's not going to take it well. I know she's going to get hysterical, and I don't know how to face that.
Making things worse, I've just had to give the dog two pills, and she hates taking pills. I have to use one of those plastic syringe-looking things to shoot the pill down her throat, or else she'll just spit them up. She already wasn't happy with me for taking her to the vet, then I had to do that, and then I had to give her a bath with the shampoo the vet gave her. She didn't like that at all. As soon as she was done and dried off and I let her go, she ran to the end of the hall, hunkered down, and growled at me, baring her teeth. She's never been that way, and it scared me. And now she's acting super aggressive and running all over the apartment and barking and growling and knocking things around. She's never acted like this. She's always been so calm and sweet. I don't know if it's the bath or a reaction to one of the pills. The vet said the benadryl would knock her out; I'm afraid it has had the opposite reaction and she's wound up from it.
I'm already stressed out because I've been putting schoolwork off all weekend, and I have my foreign language exam on Thursday, and I haven't been able to practice as much as I should. And now, with all of this, I don't know if I'll be able to practice tonight. Shit. I'm a bit of a wreck right now.
5 comments:
I know that, really, it seems very, very bad right now. But the thing to remember is that nothing is really ever as bad as you think it is. Rocky had allergies and we had to give him allergy medicine every summer. He used to chew his paws until they bled, and scratch his ears until he had torn the skin open. It seems bad, but with dogs there's usually a very simple explanation.
I'm sure everything will be fine.
And good luck in the meantime.
Thanks. I've calmed down a bit now. It was all so overwhelming at the time. Still waiting for Erika to come home though. Still waiting to see how she'll take it.
Oh man, that sounds awful! I'm sorry you've got all that going on. Some dog stuff:Can you give her pills to her in peanut butter? That's how I always give Molly's pills to her when I dogsit and it works everytime.Lumps are always scary, but I've felt several on my dogs that have always turned out to just be fatty tissue. I hope you have the same luck.
Poor Ixi. I hope she calmed down!
From someone who is notorious for stressing out i say to just try to take things one at a time and try not to dwell on anything.
We used to give our dog pills in cheese.
i hope things get better soon, bro!
Yeah, I was just overwhelmed all of a sudden yesterday.
Tried the cheese bit, didn't work. Haven't tried peanut butter yet. Good idea.
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