Strange Bump

Jeeves has a strange bump on the inside of his left front pastern. You can sort of make it out in the attach pictures. The good news is that he's not lame on it. It's not hot. It's not tender. So, that eliminates some sort of tendon (are there tendons in that area?) or abcess. It's been there for almost 2 weeks and it's slowly getting bigger. The diameter is larger than a golf ball.

Now, since he's not lame, I know alot of people wouldn't worry about something like this, but given what happened last year, I am more than a bit paranoid.

Last year, some time in mid-June, I noticed that a bump on his right haunch had started to grow. That bump had been there for a couple of years, not causing any trouble. My vet had looked at it when she'ld been out for his annual vaccinations and said that as long as it didn't change, don't worry about it. At first, I wasn't sure if it was growing or not. You know how when you look at something every day, it's hard to notice tiny changes. So, I asked Terri to look at it. Since she didn't look at it 5 or 6 times a day, she noticed right away that it had grown in the 2 days that she had not been out here. So, I had the vet out. She poked and prodded and decided to do a biopsy. It turned out to be a mastocytoma. Cancer. Eeek! I made the mistake of googline mastocytoma. Mistake because this cancer is highly malignant in canines. My vet calmed me down and explained that cancers act very differently between species and it's a pretty rare cancer in equines and when it does show up, it is not usually malignant. Big sigh of relief.

When she had been out to take the tissue sample of the lump on his haunch, I also pointed out a new lump under his jaw. This one felt very different from the mastocytoma. The mastocytoma felt soft and spongy. And, when she took the tissue sample for the biopsy, it looked rather spongey--the tissue sort of flaked and fell apart easily. The lump under his jaw was firm and hard, very well defined in shape. It has appeared rather quickly and my initial thought was that it was a bug bite. He has very bad reactions to bug bites and often has huge welts from them. So, between the time of the tissue sample for the biopsy on the mastocytoma and when my vet came out to remove it, the lump under his jaw had increased in size quite a bite. So, along with removing the mastocytoma, my vet also took a tissue sample of the jaw lump for biopsy.

That one came back as a fibroid sarcoma. ANOTHER CANCER! EEEEK! This one had a "guarded" prognosis. While it's slow to metastasize, there can be alot of tissue damage because it's very invasive locally. In the week between taking the sample and getting the results, the thing had grown so much that it had split through the stitches and was dripping blood. I was a wreck worrying about my buddy, trying to keep the flies off it and keep it clean. Because this one was situated right over the major artery that runs along the jaw line, my vet didn't dare try to touch it. So, I called New England Equine Hospital in Dover, NH, explained the situation to them and they managed to squeeze him in for surgery the very next week.

Long story a little shorter, he also had 2 other growths removed, both non-cancerous. But, he does have a melanoma on the dock of his tail. We left that alone and it doesn't seem to be doing much. Phew. I ended up having to bring him back up for another surgery because he developed a massive abcess in the incision under his jaw. We decided he was allergic to the internal stitches they use. This took up all of July and August and most of September.

Anyway, back to his new bump. I called my vet and she's coming out tomorrow to look at it. She said that there are many innocuous things that this could be and a tumor, especially in this area, is way down at the bottom of the list.

But, having 3 different types of cancerous and 2 non-cancerous growths show up on his body all within a couple of months was pretty much at the bottom of the list, too. So, I'm trying not to worry....but, I'm worried. Please say some prayers, send out some good thoughts for Jeeves.