Will our 14 year old lab survive lipoma removal surgery?
Not a lipoma, but my then 12-year-old Australian Cattle Dog had a rapidly-growing cartilage tumour from his rib. It was benign, but pushing into his lung. We were very lucky, though, in that we lived very near to (and I was a student at) a university housing the leading small animal oncology clinic in Australia – I would be very worried about the five-hour post-surgery travel. Otherwise – the surgery cost almost AU$4000 five years ago, so cost is an important consideration. The dog, however, was fine. He was supposed to stay in recovery at the clinic for at least a week after surgery, but they called us to take him home after three days as he was recovering very well, and howling for us!! His movement was limited for a few weeks, but he was such an active dog it was hard to keep him still, and so he would yelp a bit when he over-exerted but was fully recovered within two months. He’s now 17 and there haven’t been any long-term side effects, and vet students apparently still study the t
I would get a second opinion, but I likely wouldn’t do it unless it was causing her discomfort. If it DOES rupture and you and up having to put her to sleep…well…I’m pretty sentimental about pets (even after having been a vet tech, contrary to agatha_magatha’s experience), and I have gone to great lengths both financially and personally for animals whose quality of life (I felt) would benefit from my efforts, but I always consider the animal first. At some point you need to accept that animals only care about quality of life, they don’t care about quantity, and with a 14 year old dog (especially of a breed where 14 is already a very advanced age, like yours), she’s going to die of something sooner or later. If this were my dog, I wouldn’t do the surgery, the surgery itself plus the recovery time is going to impact her quality of life, even if only for a short time, and the difference it will make to her long-term quality OR quantity of life is likely negligible. I’d make sure she s
Okay, I’m seeing a lot of anecdotes involving dogs with entirely different conditions than yours. I recommend you ignore them, as a growth on the spleen/goits/”different kind of tumor”/”cartilage tumor” are entirely different than and unrelated to rapidly growing lipomas, and thus, can’t really be compared. Just because someone says “Auntie Marge’s dog Jack had 15 basketball sized tumors, and we declined surgery, and it lived to be 45 years old” doesn’t mean anything with regards to your dog. Honestly, people, your dog is sick once and suddenly you’re an expert on veterinary surgery? Here’s my professional take on this (though please note that IANAVet, just a vet tech, and this is not to be considered as veterinary advice). If you are concerned about an increased risk of surgery complications due to your dog’s age, it may comfort you to know that contrary to popular belief, there isn’t any real appreciable increase in risk due to age alone for the majority of cases. If your dog was fin
