Mast Cell Tumor and Surgery?

[eddie99]

Hi All,

I'm looking for some advice.....

I have a small sable girl who's developed a mast cell tumor between her ear and her eye on the left side of her face.  It's been slowly growing and scabbed because she can reach it with her back foot.  The vet has me giving her Clavamox and Children's Benadryl, and when we went into the office today the vet added an anti-inflammatory.  The funny thing is that we've been to the vet four times for this and she's put on weight each time - the vet thinks it's the Clavamox.  She's acting normally otherwise.

Today the vet and I really talked about surgery for the first time.  She said I would need to make a decision soon as the tumor is getting bigger and it's getting closer to her eye.  At a certain point surgery wouldn't be an option.

Did I mention that she's six years and three months old?

Please let me know what you HONESTLY think.

Regards,
Sarah

[unclejoe]

Hi Sarah. that's a tough decision. Have you discussed her prognosis after surgery? How confident is your vet that it can be done? I was just posting on a different thread about how difficult it is for some of just to get a ferret to live past a certain age, namely 6 1/2. Other than this one tumor, how is her health? You certainly don't want it to get to her eye. It would be painful. Surgery and anesthesia are rough on ferrets.
For what it's worth, Our Boodles had a skin tumor (not mast cell) removed from his head and I mad an E-collar using a harness. He survived the surgery ok, but I don't think the vet got all of the cancer, and in a month he had over a dozen more and went downhill quickly.
This is a prototype of the cone of shame. I cut the final version from some thin plastic (from an ice cream bucket, I think), and made it shorter all around, especially on the bottom so he could eat.  I wish I had a side view of the finished version.  He only had to wear it for 3 days. Good luck. Let us know how it goes.

boocone by unclejoe1158, on Flickr

[eddie99]

So I had a long conversation with the vet and she reassured me that it will probably be okay to move forward with having the tumor removed. This is mostly because she won't be cutting into her organs as the tumor appears just within the skin. She did say there were two or three facial nerves she had to be careful of though. Depending on how things go I may post some before and after pictures.

Sarah

[unclejoe]

best wishes. please update us when it's done