Medical mystery

So...there's good news and bad news.  The good news is that Buddy did NOT have to have surgery today, and he's home tonight pretty much back to normal.  The bad news is that the vet doesn't really know what's going on with the growth under his tongue.

As I mentioned in my last post, the emergency weekend vet had initially told us that Buddy had a cyst on his salivary gland (known as a ranula) and that the only effective treatment was removal of the whole gland.  In the space of a few days on IV fluids, painkillers and antibiotics, however, the picture had changed.  When I called around noon today for an update on Buddy's surgery (which I thought would have happened by that point) the regular clinic vet actually told me that he didn't think surgery would be necessary at all.  Cue a ton of confusion and frustration about receiving inconsistent information from different vets.

Bottom line is that as of this morning, the "cyst" in Buddy's mouth wasn't as large in size as it had been on the weekend.  The vet sedated him lightly so he could go in and poke at it, and found it to be firm, not liquid-filled, like you'd expect of a cyst.  After a ton of research and sending out photos of the growth to three other veterinary surgeons, he still had no answer.  As a result, he wasn't willing to operate if he didn't know what he was dealing with.  On top of all of this, Buddy had bounced back like a champ and was now full of energy and back to eating solid food.  So the vet's suggestion was that we should just take him home and watch him.

My biggest concern (since I'm a total worry-wart) was that this "growth" could be some kind of tumour or cancer.  The vet thinks not, as he felt that the mass was "too well defined around the edges" to be cancerous.  He speculated that it could be an old injury (from chomping on a stick or something) that led to the growth of scar tissue, or it could just be something else innocuous.  He suspected that Buddy has probably had this growth for a long time, and thinks that what happened late last week is that Buddy somehow managed to bite the edge of the growth and take a chunk out of it (you can kind of see where the edge is a little red) which led to pain and salivating and not eating.  He compared it to when you bite your tongue or the inside of your cheek, and then keep biting the same spot for days afterwards because it's swollen and inflamed.

At any rate, after having resigned ourselves to spending a couple thou on dog surgery, we had mixed feelings.  Obviously if it's not necessary to operate then we don't want that, but the fact remains that this issue is unresolved and could potentially recur at any time.  That, plus we don't even really know what "this issue" is!  We're also about to head off on vacation in about a week and are leaving Buddy with M's folks, so we're really hoping that they aren't stuck dealing with any problems while we're gone.  But on the upside, our pooch was so excited he practically ran home.  He ate all his dinner and is now contentedly napping on the couch.  After a weekend of unwanted excitement, I'll take it for now.