So, this is it. This is one of my deepest fears come to fruition. My dog, a flatcoated retriever, has some kind of small abnormal growth beneath his lip on the left side of his head. It almost looks like a big pimple, except for the fact that it is glaringly red and hard to the touch. At first I thought it might be a pimple – since dogs can suffer from acne too – but it didn’t go away of its own accord. That’s why I found myself at the vet’s office today. She did a quick check-up, looked at the growth on his lip and came to a very swift conclusion: a histiocytoma.
Now, this can be either benign or malign. That’s why my dog needs to go to the vet again tomorrow to have it and a good portion of healthy skin around it removed. The prospect of the anesthesia alone frightens me. I’m going to be there, though, when they put him under.
However, as you might have read in the third sentence, my dog is a flatcoated retriever and they are known – just like Bernese Mountain Dogs – to suffer from the curse of malignant histiocytomas or hystiocytic sarcomas, and that would be a fatal diagnosis. On top of this, benign hystiocytomas usually occur in young dogs, and although my dog isn’t all that old (he’s almost six) he isn’t all that young anymore either. Furthermore, both my dog’s parents have died from cancer. All this puts me extremely on edge.
People who know me, know this: my dog is my everything. He’s been there with me (with us) through some rough times and it was just yesterday that I was cycling with him through the park that I pondered over the peace and joy he brings me every day. I’m nowhere near ready to lose this, to lose him. So this thing under his lip had better be benign!
Picture taken yesterday when cycling.