Kasha's Surgery

It was a nerve wracking day yesterday as we waited to hear how the removal of Kasha's mast cell tumors went.  I first told you about them in this blog post last week. After a long weekend of waiting it was finally time for the tumor to be removed and the eyelid lump to be either assessed or removed as well.

When I put her harness on before we left she figured we were either going to the vet or walking that damned hill again and neither option was pleasant to her.

She was not excited about being back at the place where she had been poked so many times on her last visit and was clearly stressed by our arrival at the office. It broke my heart to leave her there when she was so upset.

By 3:30 pm I was back though, and picking her up. I never thought this would be good news but the lump in her eyelid was actually buckshot and not a tumor. While it is sad that at some point someone shot at this poor girl, if it had been a mast cell tumor it would have been very difficult to get the margins required to ensure that all the tumor cells had been removed which would give her a poor survival prognosis.

Incision under her left eye

The large lump behind her ear was removed and she's got a pretty long incision there to patch the ear back together. The tiny lump that I found a couple days ago on her left side was another tumor that I had just caught super early so that was also removed.

Ear incision from above

Ear incision from behind

Incision site on left side

Both tumors were sent to the lab for biopsies and we should hear back in 5-7 days about whether good margins were achieved, as well as whether the tumors are cancerous or not. Because she's young there's a good chance they aren't so we are crossing paws here and waiting for good news.

In spite of having to deal with 3 separate incision sites, Kasha is charging around the house like nothing has happened. She's a tough little dog and it takes more than tumors and buckshot to stop this girl. As I write this she is stretched out beside me on the couch, her favorite spot, and I feel lucky to have my sweet lapwarmer back at home, safe and sound.