Our almost 3 year-old Australian Shepherd child was initially brought in to the vet in January to get a lump evaluated that had formed on his left side near his rib cage. Initially the bump was about the size of a pencil eraser. not big at all.

The doctors gave him an allergy shot & said it should go away on its own but come back if it didn’t in a couple of months, if it started to irritate him, or if it started to grow. 

Unfortunately, it started to grow, and he began licking and scratching it. So I brought him back to the vet last Saturday. They recommended that we consider getting a biopsy, but since it had grown almost doubled in size that they were worried that if we waited, it could be malignant. 

They recommended surgery. And they had availability the next day. 

he truly is her firstborn child (I’m 8 months pregnant with our first human child) so obviously we said let’s do whatever it takes to keep him healthy and happy. And we signed up to do the surgery. 

Sunday night he came home, he had a 7 1/2 inch incision, they had to remove all of the additional skin in the area in case it was malignant to give him the best chance at  the cancer not coming back.  and he had an awful reaction to trazodone—turns out dogs can actually have anxiety triggered by taking trazadone. & he is one of them. 

After three urgent care calls , 2 ER visits, six days of sleeping in shifts, managing 4 medications around the clock, taking the entire week off of work for both my husband and I, And asking my father-in-law to fly in from out of the country to help us care for him,  we are so relieved to find out that the growth is not malignant & we have plenty of happy years ahead of us with our little baby.  

We are hugging him extra tight tonight & hope you do the same with yours. 

While we still have a long road to recovery, we are so incredibly grateful he’s going to be ok. 

Cancer was benign! 🥳