Hello, my names Matt, and I have a 9yr old female boxer, who last month woke up with a swollen left side of her mouth/nose. It reminded me of someone with a black eye, so a puffy cheek, that caused the her eye to swell up. I called the vet, and they couldn’t get me in for a little over week. I know this’s wrong, but I thought I’d try a steroid as an anti inflammatory, along with Benadryl. I gave her the week cycle, and the swelling completely disappeared. Another mistake on my part, but I canceled my appointment.
Everything was fine for a month, and then 3 days ago, I noticed a marble size lump starting, again. 1/10 of the size it’s previous size, so I called the vet and got lucky, they had an opening from a cancellation. So we went to the vet, I told the vet her tooth wasn’t bad, he agreed, so I didn’t think it was an infection, no discharge, the lumps firm, and I snitched on myself for giving her one of those steroid cycles where you start high, and taper off.
The vet couldn’t explain why that even worked, and I was a little surprised he didn’t prescribe anymore. He has her loaded up on antibiotics, and it isn’t doing a thing. Granted it’ll be approaching 48hrs Sunday at 2pm.
I don’t know what you call it, but the vet lanced her face, no puss came out, and sent away samples for testing. It’s $250, for the test, and the vet said he’s 50/50 on it coming back as being cancer, yet he said there’s a chance they comeback inconclusive. Say what???
This really has me upset, the frustrating part, I don’t even know if it’s warranted. I’m hiding it from our son, I’ll wait until we know for sure.
Symptoms I’ve noticed, she didn’t eat her food last week, but there was no lump, and when she ignored her favorite treat, I knew something was up. That night thinking she might be sick, I made her chicken that I shredded up, and rice, something plain. She ate everything, but it took her twice as long. So my grocery store has a refrigerated section for soft dog food. Rachel Ray, or something like that, so she’s been eating that, it just takes forever, and she doesn’t like anything cold.
I’m worried the vet isn’t moving fast enough, I mean it could be cancer in her face, she’s obviously experiencing pain when she eats, and he didn’t even give me anything for pain. He gave me antibiotics, and her normal heart worm treatment, and said see ya in 2wks. I’m waiting for his call prior to the appt for the results. Maybe this’s normal timeline, I dunno, cancer scares me, and when the vet said from my experience with the breed and her age, I’m going to say it’s 50/50 of it being cancer. The lumps hard, no puss, antibiotics not working, this’s going to be a very long couple of week.
I hope if the time should come, I can separate my emotions from it all, and do what’s best for her, and not myself. I can take out a loan if need be, or put it on a card, but if I’m buying little time, and her quality of life isn’t there, I can’t. She’s already having a tough time eating, and that’s soft food. Do any of you have any food recommendations, when she was little she had severe intestinal issues, so for the first year or so, she ate rice and chix/beef/fish. So I’m fine with cooking her food, she really likes the wet meals I’m getting her now. She doesn’t like the meals cold, she’ll either let it sit and get room temperature, or if I heat it up. Hopefully all of this’s for nothing, I’ll definitely update my post. Thanks for reading my book, I’m pretty sure I sprinkled a few questions in my rant. I just needed to vent all that’s been racing through my head this wkd. I know it’s repetitive and all over the place, welcome to my head! LoL BOL
