A Bump in the Road

love.

Wednesday evening I came home on a high as the puppy classes started that evening and it was a fantastic first class, however, life had other plans! While discussing the class with my partner (Scott), Nero was on the couch and Scott sat passively stroking him. All of a sudden he questioned "what is this lump on Nero's neck?". Of course, I had no idea what he was talking about so had to look for myself. Sure enough, on the right hand side of Nero's neck was this lump. The placement and feeling of it was that of the lymph node and upon further inspection, I couldn't feel that it could be anything else, but that.

My mind went into overdrive (as it normally does!) and I started to think of all the possibilities that people do in these situations... cancer was the first. Tears started to form and my eyes burned. My veterinary brain then rationalised with my heart and reminded it that Nero was only 6 years old (6.6 years old to be exact) so the likelihood of cancer was slim. I checked his mouth, nothing. No lumps, bumps, food or debris stuck, no redness, sores... *sigh of relief* Temperature? Normal range. Gums? Perky pink.

What then? Trauma. I looked around the area, there was a small, but perfectly positioned puncture wound. But what could have caused this? There was no other adjacent wound to say he had been grabbed a bit too roughly via the mouth of another dog during a play session. A sting? Had to be, it was the only thing that made logical sense giving the evidence. So, I cleaned the tiny wound, disinfected it, gave Nero an anti-histamine and fussed over him a little bit more than usual. Tentatively we all went to bed.

That night's sleep was not going into 'The Book of Great Sleeps' for Scott nor me. I recall waking up at least 4 times and checking on Nero. Scott said he also woke up a similar amount of times to do the same. By morning the lump was a bit smaller, but not small enough to make my mind rest easy. Vet time? Definitely. I booked him in at the Pet Doctors Newport hospital and crossed my fingers, said a little prayer and bargained with whatever force was listening.

I then messaged my vet friend (the lovely, throughout, perfectionist Irka - exactly who you need in these predicaments) for something that maybe I had missed in my triage session. Nope, nothing new to try. Now to wait.

Bloods and vitals at the vets were fine, perfect in fact (testimony to the raw diet and clean eating switch in December). Here we are 3 days later and the lump has gone down significantly. I'm still keeping an eye on it, but little scares like this are a sobering reminder that dogs (although magical, beautiful and loyal life forces) are only here with us for a short time. Anything can take them away from us, at any time. Illness, accident... these are things that (for the most part) we cannot control.

So, the moral of the tale is this: treat your dogs with nothing but kindness. They have no malice, not a mean bone in their whole bodies - they simply live alongside us in our dictated world where the rules are in another language and we are not always clear on how to follow them. There are no bad dogs. Think about their short lives and the impact that they have on ours in the small space of time we have them. Play, cuddle, run, chat, dance, love... do all the things you can with your best furend. You are their whole world and that considered, it doesn't seem like a big ask that you do the absolute, complete best you can for them everyday.