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Betty's mammary lumps

Thanks everyone - just had an update from the vet.

Betty's temperature is back to normal at the moment which he's pleased about. He said she's alert (e.g. moves away when they go to pick her up etc, bright eyed). But, she's still not moving around much and she's not yet eating for herself. She's having injectable pain meds, and antibiotics and regular Oxbow syringe feeds.

The plan is now to keep her there for one more night and take her home tomorrow by which time her pain meds will be oral and we can administer them ourselves. We talked about the pros and cons of her coming home now versus staying there, as we know that the stress of being at the vets can be an issue. But while she still seems fragile it felt that one more night is worth it, they are monitoring her temperature, keeping an eye her wound (which had some small leakage but they're on top of it and say overall they're pleased with how it's healing), and they can keep a close eye on her gut motility. Apparently she is happy to take her critical care feeds from them (she struggles when we do it, but the nurses have they have their calm and confident ways and she's taking it without issue). She has her cagemate Winnie (who apparently has settled in quite well and is merrily eating them out of house and home, which is reassuring!).

So hopefully one more night in hospital and then she can come home. It is worrying but I should bear in mind that it's not yet 48 hours since she had the operation and we knew from when she had full GA a couple of years ago that she found it pretty hard to bounce back, but she did.

Thanks for your support.
 
I’m glad she’s got her little friend with her and hope she is back home with you tomorrow feeling loads better x
 
Betty update:

I’m bringing her back today- she’s quite a bit brighter apparently. They’re still syringe feeding her 5 times a day which I will maintain as needed along with her meds.

She did eat a little bit on her own overnight for the first time since the op 😍 but her eating is not normal yet..

..they feel she’s definitely perkier though so hopefully she is turning a corner.

Post op check up is on Tuesday (they want to have a good look at her before the long bank holiday weekend).

Can’t wait to bring them both home.

Thanks everyone for your support so far.
 
Aah so pleased she’s coming back home! :) Sure she’ll get tucking in when she’s back and hears those bag rustles and fridge doors! Bet they’ll both be chuffed to see you :) x
 
I’m really hoping so! Thanks!

Last time after GA she came straight home and stared at the wall for 2 days, struggled with the feeds but then snapped out of it and came back to normal. Hopefully we’re getting to that point now.

Her high temperature does seem to have gone which is good.

She’s on various pain meds.

Happily the exotic vet is the one on-call over the weekend so we can always call them if any issues.
 
PS to help keep her wound safe we’ve disabled the ramp (which she normally charges up like a buffalo) and we’re putting hay in piles instead of hay trays (which she normally jumps into). Not sure if there’s anything else we need to but I guess just making it so she doesn’t need to stretch or jump to get to the things she needs? Not that I’m expecting her to be hyper, but we want to avoid any issues with her large wound site which is quite close to the ground.

Thanks!
 
She’s home! She’s not herself by any means but she’s munching on some veg and forage and nuggets and a bit of hay. She did some lovely happy purrs when she got home and then exhausted herself walking round her house. We’ve got 5 types of meds and critical care and weighing her daily.

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Keep up that munching beautiful! :luv:
So glad she’s back home. Hope you all have a good night and she’s a good girl for her meds :) x
 
Hi all- just to update on some good news, the mass removed from Betty has come back benign, the vet left a message earlier. Very pleased about that.

She’s definitely still not her normal self and she’s not at all happy about the syringe feeds but we’re topping up in small doses as much as she’ll tolerate until she’s eating normally. She’d learnt to head butt and kick so it’s a bit messy, bless her. Hate having to do that but. She’s taking her meds reasonably well thankfully.

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She’s put on a little bit of weight since being at home and she has moments of remembering what pigs are meant to do (like when she stole some veg off Winnie!) but is still not quite normal.

Tomorrow we have a post op check up which will be one week after her op. She has a very large scar as the mass was quite big. It was alarming for us to see as first time operation situation, but the vets have seen various photos of it the last few days and said they’re happy with it. I can post photos if anyone is interested… but it’s not pretty!

Thanks all
Lucy
 

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Glad Betty is doing well and pleased the mass was benign
Major surgery takes time to recover from, whether it’s human or piggy.
Betty is in the best hands with you.
 
Thanks so much everyone!

It is helpful for me to remember that these things take time and hopefully as long as she’s maintaining weight and getting stronger each day, we’re slowly getting there.

It will be good when she’s eating more on her own, especially as we’re trying not to overhandle her given her wound. Picking her up several times a day only to get a few ml of food is not ideal! We are being very careful though.

The vets today may decide to start reducing or stopping some of the meds but we’ll see. She’s on quite a cocktail (metacam, cisaspride, gabapentin, paracetamol and baytril), so no wonder her appetite isn’t what it usually is I guess.

Thanks again- this forum is a real help. X
 
Glad Betty's lumps came out cleanly and are benign 👍Hope she is back to normal soon, sending her healing vibes (especially from my Winnie, who also had a similar mammary lump removed in 2019) xx
 
Just caught up. It’s good news that the lumps were benign. Hopefully she will make small improvements day by day in her eating so that she’s soon back to her normal appetite. It varies greatly from piggy to piggy how quickly they bounce back. Keep up the good work
 
Wishing Betty a speedy recovery, once she’s off some of the meds her appetite should improve 🤞
 
Hi all- hope you are well.

I’m worried about Betty’s wound and have just contacted the out of hours vets to discuss. They don’t have an exotic vet on today but have agreed to send some pictures to a member of the vets team for advice.

Her wound had been looking good a few days ago (her post op check on Tuesday went really well), but today it is not looking good. I’ll try and paste both pics below. She’s still on the baytril and pain meds but I don’t think we have much baytril left which is a worry if it’s at risk of getting infected.

She is due another check up on Tuesday but I’m worried we may now need to take her somewhere as an emergency - our own vet the Beaumont in Camden is closed till Saturday.

Is there anything we should be doing while we wait for a call back from the vets?

Grateful for any thoughts!

This was the wound a couple of days ago:

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And here it is today looking gaping:

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She had her operation on the 24 May, so this is day 9. Many thanks
Lucy
 
I should add that she’s being done well eating wise- not totally normally but getting there and maintaining weight.
 
Thanks Claire!

It does seem worrying… we’re just making sure her house is really clean (which we were already doing) and keeping her food intake going. She seems ok in herself but not sure if that wound needs more attention. It would happen on a bank holiday when there are no exotics around! But hopefully the out of hours general vets will still have a view.

She’s currently munching away on the hay bless her.
 
Thanks so much! To be honest she seems very perky today! I hope they can advise. And if we need more baytril to keep the infection at bay I hope we can get that before the vets open on Saturday. Not sure how it works but hopefully there’s a way to get it out of hours. Looking at the bottle I think there’s only one dose left.
 
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