Koira's Toe

This is the sad face I have been getting for the past few days.

Koira had surgery on Tuesday afternoon to remove a lump on her toe. Now, I don't believe in removing every lump a dog gets, just in case it is something bad. Most lumps are benign and are safer to leave in place than to risk the complications of surgery to remove. This lump, though, had all the earmarks of a not-good kind. It was on a toe, which is probably the number one worst spot to find a lump, as they are much more likely to be something bad when located on a toe. In addition to that, it grew pretty quickly (though it is still pretty small, really), is black, and is an irregular texture. The best way I can describe the texture is like cauliflower- just sort of rough and lumpy. Not one of those things is a good sign, so we decided to get it taken off.

This little lump is causing all this fuss.

Unfortunately, because of the holiday in the middle of the week, we haven't gotten the pathology report back yet. I'm hoping we get it on Monday, but it might not be in until Tuesday. Which just means more waiting and wondering and worrying.

Koira is just a little depressed about wearing a cone, but at least she isn't doing any worrying about the path report.

There was also a similar lump farther up on the same leg, up on the front of her knee. So we took that off at the same time while Koira was under, just to be safe. We figured we may as well, since it lessens the probability of her needing to be put under again. The vet also made sure to get as wide of margins as possible, so that if it is something bad, we will have (hopefully) already gotten rid of all of it.

If you are squeamish, you might not want to look at the pictures below. They aren't of anything too bad, but are of Koira's stitched wounds as of today.

This first one is of her knee. I think a knee is a stupid place to need stitches, and the stitches obviously agree, since they have pulled out on the top side and are now sitting there doing absolutely nothing (except annoying Koira with their itchiness, I bet). Luckily, they stayed in long enough that the wound seems to be healing fine. She'll probably have a pretty obvious scar right there though.

Useless stitches, just hanging out

Her toe I'm not really sure what is up with. It seems a little angry, to be honest. And I'm not sure if the stitch in it is where it is supposed to be, doing what it is supposed to be doing, or if it actually pulled out as well. Her foot was actually wrapped for two days after the surgery, so I didn't get a look at it from the beginning. It just looks strange right now.

I'm thinking I will call my vet and ask, and possibly bring her in for a quick recheck. In the mean time, Koira has destroyed one cone (the clear one in the pictures above). I am now trying her in the Bite Not collar, since I happen to have one laying around. She doesn't appear to be able to get to her foot with it on, so hopefully that works for the rest of the week until the stitches come out.