Lots of pet drama here the last couple weeks. Our first and oldest dog Birdie, a yellow lab, got scanned due to some abnormal blood work from her yearly checkup and they found a big tumor on her spleen. Almost certainly cancer. But there is no way to be sure other than to open her up. If its not cancer, the thing is liable to burst and kill her anyway.
Surgery on Friday went great. Tumor was the size of a baseball and ready to burst any moment. There didn't seem to be any spreading but if its cancer you can't just look and see, you have to do a biopsy.
Meanwhile we brought her home, and when we parked the car in the driveway something in her abdomen let loose and blood started pouring out of her incision. Not dripping, pouring. My wife was hysterical but I was able to yank off my jacket and press it against the wound as she climbed in the back seat with her, then I sped off to the urgent vet about a mile away. Got there in about 4 minutes and ran her inside. They were able to stop the bleeding which thankfully was coming from a subcutaneous layer in her abdominal wall rather than an internal organ or artery. She spent 3 nights there until the would stopped suppurating for the most part. Her blood count was very low and she was set to get a transfusion from another dog when her count started climbing back up. We brought her home on Monday.
She's been resting comfortably, eating, drinking, pooping and peeing. She's gotten remarkably stronger each day and is damn near acting like a normal dog here one week after the operation.
The vet called this afternoon with the test results. Benign. No cancer detected. He couldn't believe it.
Looking like Birdie will make it to her 14th birthday in April after all. Today was a pretty good day around here.