my lumpy girls Cookie and Hope

[Petunia]

Cookie and Hope both have lumps- Hope's showed up first and is next to her spine. Very round and hard.


Cookie has a soft round growth that is growing very slowly, thank goodness. Most likely a mammary gland tumor...no sense taking her to the vet; she will not operate on a rat Cookie's age (nor any rat over 18 mos old)

Neither of them seem to be bothered by their lumpiness but that one on Hope is really hard to look at, I just can't imagine what it is.


Here's a recent photo of Cookies little lump:

and here are some of Hope's big lump:

this one doesn't really show the lump and although it's a bit blurry, it's so cute, I had to add it :giggle:
you can see that she is not having any trouble getting around

and what the heck, a cute one of The Cookie :lol:

what do you all think of Hope's lump? the vet said she could do a FNA but she won't operate on her anyway, so I didn't really see what good it would do.

It's very hard and can't be moved at all.

I can't even begin to imagine what it will be like if it gets much bigger. It seems to have slowed down growing, I think. I should try to figure out a way to measure it.

 

[jorats]

Why won't the vet operate? That's insane. I can understand not operating due to bad health like lungs and such but not if the rat is in good health.

 

[Petunia]

she doesnt' have a whole lot of experience and has had more losses of rats that went in for neuters and stuff than I am comfortable with, she's never done a spay that I know of and really doesn't want to do them
I haven't found another vet yet, still looking. the one that will come to your house uses a vet hospital that is too far away for me to get to by cab and i've got no one who can drive me, so.....

yeh, I did convince her to remove a tumor on Tilly last year, Tilly was about 16-17 mos old at the time, and that was really older than she wanted to do, but I talked her into it, it was a small tumor, and easy to remove, nothing tangled up in it, or the like and Tilly made it to almost 2 yrs old so it was well worth it, but she wont' do Cookie because of her age

and she wouldn't even consider doing surgery on Hope with the lump being so close to her spine.

I think in a way its a good thing she knows her limits, I suppose. Rats are fairly popular here but are not considered "worth" vet care in most cases, so vets dont' get to see very many.

 

[jorats]

Oh that sucks. It must be so hard for you to know that you can't do anything about it.

 

[fenshae]

Wow...on the one hand, I'm kind of glad your vet's not trying to stretch herself beyond her comfort zone...but on the other hand, um, how is she ever going to learn/get better without practice? Seems kind of weird. But, well, whatever.

That lump is so strange. I wonder if it's a cyst or something?