Always about the dog...

She has had this little bump on her side for a long time, maybe a year. We took her to the vet when it first showed up and he said it was most likely a little fatty deposit and nothing to worry about. He said he would remove it if we wanted him to, but he really didn't think that was necessary. In retrospect, I wonder why he didn't offer to do a needle biopsy. Its non-invasive and would have determined immediately the nature of the bump.

Anyway, its been there for a long time, it never went down (he said it might). K had looked at it before and said it looked like there was a little puncture to it, but we couldn't tell if it was dirt or what, because it was dark.

Well, I was sitting outside on the deck with the dog today, just petting her, and I looked at the bump and the little dark spot was still there, and it looked like it was protruding a little. Now, that's strange I thought. You may want to stop reading here if you're squeamish or likely to get grossed out.

So I put a little bit of pressure on it. Not much, just a bit. It apparently was some kind of large cyst. A bunch of yellowish cheesy looking stuff came out of it. I mean like a LOT. Even when the bump seemed flat, it never had blood come out, so I pressed it again gently and stuff STILL came out! So gross. She didn't act like it hurt her or anything. She never whimpered, or bit at me, or tried to get away or anything.

Now I'm all worried, what could this be? I looked it up online, and the page I found that tells all about the different kind of cysts dogs can have all say this about them: Don't squeeze it! It can cause a severe allergic reaction!

Well, CRAP! I've already done it now, I'm a terrible dog-mom. And the vet said it was just a fatty deposit? Last time I checked nasty infection doesn't come out of fatty deposits. I called the vet. Apparently they take a nice long lunch, until 2 pm. I left a message. I'm going to ask about it when they call me back. But I feel bad that I did something I wasn't supposed to do, I feel bad that she had that infection under her skin for a YEAR and I didn't do anything, since I took the vet's word on it, and I am worried that now she's going to get all caterpillar-swollen again and break out in hives or something.

And she's just a dog. Le Sigh. Its going to be really bad when I have actual human children.