After the stitches came out

Sue, from the Portuguese Water Blog, added a comment on my last post saying that Penny's swelling was probably fluid. That's what our vet said, also. He said it would be mostly gone by yesterday - which it was. Aren't vets amazing? I would have said it would take another week for such a big swelling to go down.

Here's a picture of it yesterday, after our first proper walk in more than two weeks:

It's a little swollen, but basically gone. And, hooray, the stitches are out at last.

We had a lovely short walk at Clifton Hill, in the winter sunshine. We used to walk about an hour a day at least, briskly, but for this first outing we simply strolled around for half an hour.

swelling after lipoma surgery

I'm glad Penny is going back to the vet tomorrow morning, because the stitches around her lipoma surgery don't look too good. (If our vet were open on a Sunday, I'd have taken her there today.)

For a couple of days now we've thought the spot was swelling, but today it's more obvious than it was.

Penny lying on her back, the swelling obvious after her lipoma surgery.

The swelling after the lipoma surgery looks horrible when she's standing.

A couple of things are reassuring, and help us to keep the worry at bay (until tomorrow morning!). One is the fact that Penny seems fine. Here she has taken herself outside this morning to enjoy the winter sunshine, the first we've seen in days.

Secondly, a look around the internet seems to show that this kind of swelling is not unusual, in humans or in dogs, after a lipoma is removed.  Most sites say it will resolve, even if it takes a long time. (I sure hope hot.) One recommends hot compresses.

Here's a short clip of a similar swelling on a man's back. 

I got brave and watched a video of a lipoma surgery. I only gagged once! It was amazing to see the surgeon lift out the lipoma in its own little sack of skin. Now I understand what my vet meant when he said they got it all and it was intact. 

Here's another vet talking on YouTube about fatty lipomas. Very informative and interesting, but if you watch, be warned that suddenly you might be watching him standing with a huge ball of fat in his hand and cutting it off a dog! 

keeping a dog occupied after surgery

It's been a lo-ong week without our daily walks. Penny is still under vet's orders to take it easy, because of the stitches in her chest. He says that walking would put strain on the wound.

In order to pretend she's still going for walks, we often pop her in the car and take her to a nearby park to mooch around for five minutes. Yesterday we went to a local footy oval, and on the way home I noticed  a green space in our locality. After walking with Penny for eight years, I thought I would know them all, but here was yet another.

It seemed a rather unappealing place, to be honest.

But Penny found some interesting smells.

There was some lovely street art for me to admire while Penny looked around.

Penny's still not feeling good, I think, because after five minutes at each venue, she led the way back to the car. And look how low she was carrying her tail.

clipper causes skin rash after surgery for lipoma

I hope you'll forgive me for yet another post about Penny's surgery, but I thought our experience might be useful information for other people deciding whether to go for this option if their dog has a lump.

We visited the vet for a check-up today, four days after the surgery, and the wound looked swollen around the stitches, which the vet said was 'serum' around the wound. It might have been the result of Penny's activity since the operation. We'll take it even more quietly for a few days until the wound is not swollen-looking. On the other hand, Penny has mostly been resting and we only go out to toilet a few times a day, on lead.

The ghastly-looking redness around the wound was most likely a rash from the clippers used to remove her coat around the site for surgery. Here's the photo from a few days ago:

 and today it is much less sore-looking:

In this photo you can see that there is no stitch at one end of the cut. The vet said he left this open in case the wound needed to drain.

Whilst reading up  for this post, I've come across a really good article at The Kerry Blue Terrier Foundation, dealing with the question of whether or not to have surgery for a lipoma.

The article discusses the pros and  cons, gives lots of case studies, and talks about other possibilities than surgery, including:
watch and wait
no treatment
liposuction
injection of collagenaze
weight loss, diet and exercise
acupressure
herbal medicines
homeopathy (not much success reported)
aromatherapy

One thing I was glad to read was that modern anaesthesia means that it should be safe for even an older dog to undergo surgery for a lipoma. I must admit this was highest in my list of worries when  we opted for surgery.

post surgery for the lipoma

Penny's operation to remove a lipoma has given us peace of mind, and she appears to have bounced back from the anaesthetic, but these photos show there's still a price to pay.

I'll be glad when we've been back to the vet to check it is all healing okay. Two days to wait.

Penny's poor sore paw

On Sunday, Penny cut her front paw while we were walking in the bush.

I guess we've been lucky this has never happened before. However, it did mean that I was unsure how to deal with it. First I washed the cut with salty water, a couple of times, then I bandaged it loosely. Which left the problem of how to go outside for toileting without getting the bandage wet. (We've had lots of rain lately, which you won't find me complaining about after the fifteen or more years of drought we endured.)

Well, that didn't work all that well. There are a couple of plastic bags lying somewhere in the yard, lost within minutes of our going out in the dark.

Today, when we came back to Melbourne, I decided to scout the Net for more information, and found some sites that were quite helpful. I was pleased that Betadine was recommended on some of them, as I've got Betadine spray. So I've sprayed it and put a fresh bandage on, and we'll see how things look tomorrow.

One recommendation that seemed sensible was to wrap only a couple of layers around the paw, because if the bandaging is too thick, the dog will notice it more, and therefore be more likely to lick at it. (I recall from Penny's previous biopsy bandaging how important it is to keep the bandage dry.)

This squidoo says we should rebandage the paw twice a day, so I guess I'll do that.

The Dog Owner's Home Veterinary Handbook says a fresh wound longer than half an inch should be sutured, but says if the wound is older than twelve hours, suturing is questionable. If I'd been in Melbourne I would have taken her straight to the vet to see if stitches would help. But we were too far away.

At the moment she seems to be comfortable, and in fact isn't even limping much. She's taking her weight fully on both front legs.

I'll call the vet tomorrow, to check whether I'm doing the right thing, and I'm going to ask about a recommendation by Julia Szabo on a dogster site, that the wound will heal faster if it is kept soft:

Then, to help speed healing, I applied some Buck Mountain Wound Balm, the same excellent ointment I used on my dog Tiki when he was fighting cancer. This stuff packs the triple healing punch of burdock, yarrow, and echinacea, and is a first-rate item to keep in the K9 first aid kit. Without some kind of ointment to keep the tissue soft, a wound takes longer to heal - and with the location of this wound, recovery speed really counts.

On looking at the Buck Mountain Herbal Gold site, I see that it is recommended for minor cuts and closed wounds, and that using salve on an infection that is not clean and dry might accelerate the infection, so I think I'll definitely ask for advice from the vet before doing anything other than keeping the wound clean and infection-free.

I might try using aloe vera, if the vet says it is important to keep the paw pad soft.

Penny walks once more

Penny had the stitches out today and when the vet examined her foot he said she should be fine to go for walks, even though her foot might be 'tender'. The original problem, which seems to be a build-up of calloused skin, hasn't been resolved, but the vet thinks the large slice he took out for the biopsy might result in new blood-flow to the area and thus solve it. The problem seems to be developing on her other front foot, though. I guess we'll deal with that when necessary...

 She set off enthusiastically for her first proper walk in two weeks, sniffing around Yarra Bend Park.

And, joy of joys, she found a ball.

(In this photo you might see how she is leaning to the left to take the weight off her right front foot. That was the behaviour that made us take action to try to resolve the issue.)

 After lots of bounding around and rolling, Penny noticed her foot was indeed tender. More than tender, by the body language.

So we headed home.