M*A*S*H*

Today was Halo's lump removal, this lump has spent the last couple years getting bigger and since she will be going to a new home I thought it best to remove it now before it starts growing an eye or teeth or something. It didn't hurt her, didn't affect her movement, and seemed pretty well encapsulated. Here she is pre-lump removal about 6 weeks ago - it's on her elbow just above the joint.

Now I'm no expert in surgery or the niceties of removing lumps from dogs but something tells me a MASH surgeon(a la Hawkeye) with a box cutter could have done a slightly cleaner incision than this. Someone commented that a med student could have done a better stitch job - I'm going to leap into agreement. When I first saw Halo at the vet I wondered if it was even stitched because it looked so ... ugly. However, the stitches are holding and she doesn't seem to be bothering it although she is still a little drugged up. I guess we'll see when she is more herself in the morning. Right now she is still a bit lame and forgets that her leg is tender so I try to keep her in one spot as much as possible. I'll beat all ya'll to the punch: that is going to be one helluva scar. As you can see she is not impressed with things. I put her in the expen initially to reintegrate her into the melee of dogs because the three hooligans were a bit bouncy for woozy Halo. Now they are all sleeping peacefully on the bed. My main concern is not her pulling the stitches out ... it's Raimi fussing over the incision and pulling the stitches out. The Boy tends to obsess over any cuts or scratches the other dogs may have and once he discovers Halo's uber-owie he could cause all kinds of problems. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.