Ranger Danger

As you can probably tell, we are rather fond of our dog around here.

One of her nick names is Ranger Danger just because it rhymes.

But, it turns out that she's actually in some danger.  Sigh.

Some of you may have noticed that she has a bump on her face, near her right eye.  We first noticed it about the time that top picture was taken - last summer. It was on a camping trip and we were sure she'd gotten injured.

But, it's still hanging out.  And it seems like it's becoming more prominent.  I'm not totally sure if it's gotten bigger or just changed - the fur is rubbed off of it, for one.

So, I made her a vet appointment and off we went today.

They poked at it, much to Ranger's dismay, making it even more noticeable, as you can see below.

And, it turns out that she was right to be dismayed.  It's malignant and needs to be removed.  They did a blood draw, as well, for presurgery.  Thus, the fetching purple bandage on her leg.

And she still looks worried, no?  There is good news, though.  There's over an 80% chance that all that needs to be done is removing the bump and she'll be fine.  I'm choosing to believe that that is what will happen.

Meanwhile, though, even with that belief there is the bad news.  This is going to cost us an arm and a leg when all is said and done.  Because it's close to her eye, the vet would like us to consider talking to a board certified surgeon because they can be more aggressive about removing tissue than our vet would want to be. Just today's visit wasn't cheap and then she needs to take Prilosec (yeah, that's cheap) and Benadry daily because this type of tumor tends to throw of histamines which need to counteracted.  And, really, in the grand scheme of all this is going to cost us, that cost is minor, but still.  

Ranger, however, is more than worth it, particularly with such a good prognosis.  I don't know what we'd do without her.