Bacchus Post Op

We just got back from visiting Bacchus. The surgery went as well as we could have hoped. The doctor was able to remove the mass and resect the section of intestine. We were fortunate in that the mass was basically in the middle of the small bowel, where surgery is relatively simple. The doctor had cautioned us that if it was close to either end, the procedure could be very difficult, and perhaps even impossible.

They did a chest x-ray before admitting him for surgery. Luckily, it came back clean and they went ahead with the operation. It was getting pretty tense waiting for that phone call. The doctor told us they really never know what to expect until they get inside. He said he may have to call us during the operation to ask for direction (i.e., continue, or let him go).  That was a frightening thought. As it turns out, everywhere else was pretty clean. They did see a lymph node that appeared suspect, but they couldn’t get to it, so they took a tissue sample of another node for biopsy.

Incredibly, Bacchus is already on his feet at 7:30 when we came to see him. He was pretty shaky, and seems to be walking with a bit of a limp. From what we can tell, his hind right leg looked to be very stiff. We hope that is just an artifact of the surgery, or perhaps all of the muscle loss over the last couple of weeks, but it is something we really want to ask the vet about. We got a few tail wags out of him, but it was pretty obvious that he is exhausted. We decided to let him get back to some rest.

Now we’re back to the waiting game. The doctor expected Bacchus to make a fairly quick recovery from the surgery, and believes that he will feel much better starting immediately. The big question now is what was that mass. We hope to get the biopsy results Wednesday, or perhaps Thursday. Then we’ll have an idea of what kind of treatment we are in for. It seems fairly likely, though not certain, that this is a cancer tumor of some kind. Obviously, we’re hoping it’s benign, but we’ll settle for something early stage and non-aggressive.

That’s about all we know for now. We’ll post more when we get to bring him home, and obviously when we have some sort of prognosis, but this is pretty good news, considering.