Bean's Bump

So before you panic when you see these pictures of our little guy, know that Bean is now fully recovered and back to his handsome self. About six weeks ago, Bean woke up with a strange red bump next to his eye. We gave it a few days hoping it was just a bug bite or ingrown hair, but when it didn't disappear inside a week we thought we should take him to the vet. Our vet was pretty confident the bump was a benign tumor (also called histiosarcoma), but she wanted to remove it for a few reasons. The first is that with it being so close to his eye there was no way to test it (she called this aspirating). I don't blame her for not wanting to get near Bean's eye with a needle. Bean is notorious for his bad behavior at the vet. When he was a puppy he was so nervous about a trip to the vet he pooped all over their wall (and the vet, bless her heart). The second big reason to remove the tumor was that it was so close to his eye and he was scratching at it. We wanted to make sure he didn't damage his eye in an effort to scratch at his bump. So even though we had a lot of anxiety about Bean going under for surgery, we decided to go with the vet's recommendation. We took Bean in early one morning and just a few hours later they called to let us know he was recovering and almost ready to go home.

After the surgery his face looked great. It was so much better looking without the big pink bump. A few days later we believe he popped one of the stitches, because it started looking pretty gross. It did have a scab though, so we decided to wait it out a few days. Sure enough, the power of dogs to heal is remarkable and within another week the scab was disappearing and the hair was starting to grow back. Of course, all of this happened when the filmaker (Anthony from Mile Deep Films) was supposed to come to film the interview for Etsy. There was a little stress about Bean not looking his usual self for the camera.

After weekly updates on Bean's facial status - scab progression, hair growth, etc, Bean was finally back to his beautiful camera ready self and looked great on film (the piece should be up on Etsy in a few months). All that is now left of that yucky bump is a small black dot where it once was. I wanted to share this now that the scare is over so that if you see a similar bump on your pup you'll know to go get it checked out right away. We are really lucky that our little guy was just fine and the bump was benign. Bean means the world to us and is a huge part of our little family. He has already forgotten about the whole episode, though I don't know if this improved his opinion of the vet!