The Tumor

Ok, coolest surgery ever today. This big black lab came in a with gigantic tumor on it's front, right leg. The owner said it had grow FAST in a week, which I have since heard could indicate it was a mast cell tumor, and a malignant one at that because this was the second time the tumor had grown back. The dog started licking it before the anesthetic took effect but after we had taken off the bandage. This caused it to bleed a great deal, and we had to compress the wound. During surgery the dog had to have a tourniquet on to reduce the amount of blood lost, but there was still a TON of it. There was even some spurters! Doc had to sew a lot of them off. The tumor was about the size of two ping pong balls when Doc finally got it off. And, since it was so big, there wasn't enough skin to cover it. Doc had to sew some big stitches across the wound, to hope the the skin would grow back across slowly. One of the techs bandaged the wound after I cleaned up all the blood. We also showed the wound to the owner after we cleaned up blood but before we bandaged it so she would know what it looked like. I thought we could have prepared for that a little better. Sometimes veterinarians can be very very clinical.