Pet Forum / Mammals / Rats / January 2007

Seeing as Tracy was kind enough to ask....

Kai was pain bruxing on Friday night so I gave him 1 drop of Metacam.
He spent Friday night on the sofa with me and his cagemates rotated to
keep him company.
He overnighted in the carrier in my bedroom and I checked him about
every three hours.
I gave him a second drop of Metacam late on Saturday morning and he went
back in the cage at lunchtime.
He was mugged by my littlies who kept trying to smell / touch his wound
until BR plopped on top of him.
He had a 3rd drop of metacam at about 22:00 and hasn't had any since.

We went for a post-op checkup yesterday and saw Vet Matt who had
performed the op.
Matt said under normal circumstances the incision for a lumpectomy is 3
times as long as it is wide but because the lump was soooooo big he
would have had to cut around Kai's bum and along his right side to make
that kind of incision ;-)

The lump didn't shell out, Matt had to cut it out bit by bit.  By the
time he had finished it was the size of a small apple.  He was working
on Kai for nearly 30 minutes but they only charged me for 20!
Matt said some lumps are tadpole-shaped and have a lump with a tail that
attaches somewhere inside the body cavity, fortunately Kai's lump was
not like this so he thinks he has got it all out.  Matt wasn't sure if
it was benign or not, but he hopes it was benign and won't come back.

Kai also had a bit of cosmetic surgery.  Matt said there was quite a lot
of excess skin once the lump had been taken out so he removed some of
the excess skin so the wound would be in a better position on Kai's
body.

Kai has been discharged as his wound was glued over the internal sutures
but if he piggles the glue off or if I'm concerned about anything I'm to
go back.

Thanks for asking Tracy.