I'm home with June today. Her surgery was yesterday. It went well, but holy shit...the tumor was much, much bigger than expected. Once removed it was about 12" x 12" x 4". :( Can you believe that? Poor sweet thing.
The good news is that she's doing good. The drugs are definitely working. She's barely lifted her head since she came home last night which is fine by me. She's still leaking a TON of blood, but the vet said that's expected for about 4 or 5 days.
The bad news is that the vet "has never seen anything like this in his career." He said these fatty tumors generally hit a max size and stop growing...they don't typically keep growing and growing and growing like this tumor. Lipomas generally range between the size of a marble and a golf ball. Juno's tumor didn't seem to get the memo that it's supposed to STOP growing. It must really be a freak thing because when I went to pick Juno up yesterday, the vet showed me at least 15 pictures on his cell phone of the surgery that he had taken because he wanted the other doctors in the practice to see them. June's a total celeb...I hope this doesn't give her a big head.
Dr. Jacobs is pretty confident that it's going to grow back. He said he was as aggressive as possible, but that this tumor was very, very invasive....stretching from her spine to her furthest rib and going under and in between every rib, muscle, and nerve in between. Unfortunately, it seems like this will be a case of when, not if, the tumor grows back which was my worst fear. Now we will just hope that when the tumor grows back it'll reach a point when it'll STOP growing, not rapidly multiply like it did this time.
I have to give a blog shout out to our amazing vet, Coastal Veterinary Hospital. The vet and staff are all so amazing. Dr. Jacobs gave me his personal cell phone number last night and told me to call him at any hour if I had questions about her comfort level. We even texted a couple times yesterday. Can I please find a pediatrician that I like this much??
More than anything, however, Juno deserves a nice big (but gentle) pat on the back for being such a great patient. I know she’s in pain, but she’s still as sweet as she can be. For the next two weeks she has to wear a t-shirt and a comfy cone, but all she wants to do (when she’s awake) is kiss you and wag her tail. Understandably, I think a lot of dogs would be grumpy, snippy, and snarly, but not my Sweet Baby J.
The incision and drains. Before Juno's surgeries I didn't know what a "drain" was so I thought I'd include this so you can see what I'm talking about. It's basically an open portal into her body that leaks blood and fluid, reducing fluid build up. When she had this surgery in June 2011 she had ONE drain...it was now big enough to need FOUR drains. These will be removed on Wednesday morning. Until then she's extremely prone to infection (again, open tube into her body) so we really have to be good about keeping them clean.
Recovering last night. Do you see the little hearts that the Vet Tech drew on her compression cuff? She also wrote "Get Well Soon." So sweet.
Uma Nightingale. She's not much of a nurse, but she's so damn cute. Uma seems a little worried and confused about Juno, but mostly she's just tired. It's hard being a pup.
Btw, I can't stop looking at the text of the tumor. I have issues. Hope she's draining less by now and know you are looking forward to the drains coming out tomorrow!
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