[TGKvr]

Hi all... so today my girl went to the vet to get a small lump checked out that we noticed last Wednesday. It is red and raised, almost like a nipple, and it's on her trunk. FWIW, she is a little over 3 years old.

DH was the one to take her in, which might not have been the best choice only because he doesn't ask a lot of questions and he's terrible about relaying information back to me when I ask how the vet visit went. Anyway. He told me that the vet said it was a tumor (no idea what kind). He did not aspirate it. He prescribed prednisone, said to watch it for a week and if it didn't go away/get smaller within that time we'd go back and he'd cut it off and send it to the lab.

I have a few questions for anyone with experience with this. I love my vet, but I'm wondering why he wouldn't aspirate first thing? He never mentioned the word cancer or cancerous apparently but my gut feeling is that he would not have prescribed prednisone if he didn't have some inkling of it being cancerous.

Am I just going down the rabbit hole of assumptions? I'm planning to call the office here in a little while to get some more detail about their visit but I'm curious if any of you have experienced prednisone treatment as a first recourse and for things that perhaps are not cancerous but benign. Also wondering about aspiration protocol, what is normal there.

Thoughts? TIA!

 

[TGKvr]

Thanks CaptJack.... yes I was a little concerned about the potential for treatment after being on prednisone. So maybe I'm just paranoid and it's no big deal. I called the vet's office and he's in surgery so I'll have to wait to talk to him later. I've had generally very positive experiences with this vet and he has demonstrated compassion and practicality many times. For instance, not over-prescribing things or not charging me to just take a look at something occasionally... So I feel like I can trust him but you know any time there is a question of the big C it's bound to cause some anxiety and worry. She's just so young!

 

[TGKvr]

Update after talking to the vet. So, he says it's likely either one of two things: a histiocytoma or a mast cell tumor. It wasn't large or soft enough to aspirate - he said he wouldn't have been able to get anything out of it (it is about the size of one of her nipples, maybe a tad smaller, and firm to the touch). Since it's Thanksgiving and he had surgery scheduled today and his office is closed through the weekend, he gave the prednisone to see if it will reduce the size of it in the meantime. So we are to watch it through the weekend then on Monday if it hasn't changed, we are supposed to call him and get her in so it can be surgically removed and analyzed.

Obviously I'm hoping it's option A but I guess we won't know until we know. Fingers crossed.