I could say, "duh..she's Thyme". But I won't (at least out loud)...every dog has it's story and I think hers is something special.
Thyme is the matriarch of my house, turned 10 years old in May and essentially for 10 years, has been a realatively healthy dog. Her two "major" OMG moments for me were the night she severed her tendon in the front leg (see previous post), and the day we found "the lump".
I was on my way down to Georgia to drop her daughter, Potter, off with a field trainer for a trial run on training her for field trials as a gun dog (sometimes spelled as one word, sometimes two..here...I chose two). I got a call from my mom whom Thyme was spending the weekend with about a suspicious lump on her back (lumbar region for those medically inclined). The call went a little something like this (not verbatim, we're talking 4 years ago).
Have you noticed a lump on Thyme's back.
No. There's a lump?
Yes, about the size of a dime on her back, close to her spine. She's been laying outside in the yard all day patrolling for critters (her favorite pasttime) and I just noticed it when she came in.
Maybe she got bit by something. Give her 2 Benadryl and I'll take a look at it when I get home.
Ok.
I proceeded to drop Potter off at her trainer's the following morning, then head home. I called my mom to check on 'the lump' (and Thyme of course) and it was still present, same size...same same same. I told her to give her 2 more Benadryl..I'm on my way home.
I saw the lump. Hard, defined border, non-moving. RUTROH! I scheduled an appointment with our vet, who pulled a needle aspirate (poked it for fluid for those non-medical folks) and sent it off to the pathologist. In a few days it came back,
Possible Amelanotic Melanoma..................huh?? A melanoma..with no melanin, and it's UNDER the skin?...Uh OK.
Anyway, it ended in "OMA" so OUT it came!
Here's a photo of her post surgery.
I had dubbed her "Franken Thyme"
The intruder really wasn't that large, but what was quite creepy about it was that it had "appendages" as the vet said, so to get the 1cm clean margins this is what the result was. The vets were super, they even "prepped" me by saying the infamous...."it looks worse than it is"...
Days ticked by and the pathology report came back quite different from the needle biopsy:
MICROSCOPIC FINDINGS: NERVE SHEATH TUMOR, LOW TO INTERMEDIATE GRADE, MYXOMATOUS
This mass is completely excised; neoplastic cells are not seen within 1cm of deep margins. This should be a surgical cure.
WHEW!
That was an event. Eventually the staples/sutures were removed and even later, the hair grew back. The only reminants of her second "OMG" experience is a couple inch scar on her back.
Song of the day: "Fighter" by Christina Aguilera
