I hope you're not like PaPa. That's Grammy Jill's husband. If you are don't read this article. You see PaPa is always scouring the internet for health information, life-extending supplements and the like. As a result, he has incorrectly self-diagnosed hundreds of life threatening ailments. I mean who needs a personal physician anymore. Right?
So, IF YOU"RE AT ALL LIKE PAPA DON"T READ ANY FURTHER. I found the following article on VirtuaVet and it scared the bejesus out of me.
A two-year-old Tibetan Terrier beauty rescued from the pound when she was one, Lucy was the pride of her pappa’s life.
“Doctor,” whispered her concerned human,”Lucy has this mass, this growth, this…thing on her nose. There was nothing, and them suddenly, there it was. I hope it’s nothing bad.”
This is a difficult moment in any pet parent’s life. You’ve noticed a mass. You ponder how it came to be. You hope you can think of a “good” reason for the lump.
“The cat scratched Lucy two weeks ago when they were playing. Maybe it’s an infection?” said the dad.
“Don’t tell me it’s anything bad.”
You know some things are bad. Cancer, for one. You can’t imagine what could grow on your dog and be okay.
“Maybe it’s allergy. She went to a new dog park. Maybe she caught something. Maybe she needs antibiotics,” said Lucy’s dad hopefully.
Every veterinarian already knows what this bump probably is based on a description over the telephone. A raised pink to red round topped lump, no fur, growing on the nose of a young dog.
-mast cell tumor
-papilloma virus lump
-if the description is off, infection, hive, bug bite
-or, my favorite- histiocytoma (pronounced: his tee oh sigh toe ma)
A quick aspirate cytology, a procedure involving a needle stuck into the lump, and the cell sample placed on a glass slide, dried, stained, and analyzed under the microscope, diagnoses the lump.
“Great news! Lucy grew a histiocytoma,” said Doc Truli.
“That sounds bad, Doctor. Will she be okay?”
Histicytomas grow suddenly when immune cells called histiocytes accumulate in a clump. No one knows why. But we do know that the histiocytoma will go away on its own in about two weeks.
“That lump will crack off and leave a bald spot in about two weeks. Then it will heal over completely,” said Doc Truli.
“Are you sure Lucy doesn’t need surgery?”
“This is one situation where a little inexpensive test at the vet’s saves you lots of worry,” said Doc Truli.
