The waiting game...

I just brought my dog into the vet this morning. She had a red mark on her arm, and from what my father-in-law said he sees on his dog all the time, it sounded like a "hot spot". Just some red irritation on the skin that the dog causes herself. So - I go to the vet, find out she needs to lose 2 pounds (I can't resist giving the treats to her - if you saw her you'd understand why), and then the doctor says she's going to just shave the hair around it and put some topical solution on.

Ten minutes go by. Then twenty. Then she comes out, and if she was saying "your table is ready" at a restaurant - that casually, I hear the word cancer. "We don't know yet..." her voice drifted off in my head and the word cancer just blinked on and off in my head like a flashing red traffic light. My dog either has a bacterial infection (good - caused by stress or being lonely, and she was home for a week with my friend Molly while we were out of town), a histiocytoma (not as good but still ok) where it will probably go away on its own and is a benign type of cancer, or a mast cell tumor (MCT) where further tests are needed to see if it's spread, what 'grade' level it is, and the best way to remove it. I can't even write what grade 3 would mean, but the 'lower' grades are treatable.

I'm totally beside myself. Thinking back to all the times when my dog would vomit a little after running around too much, or eating a treat too quickly, and we always say "yeah she just has a sensitive stomach". If I ever find out that was part of it, even after the other vet said she's just sensitive, and I could've treated it earlier, I couldn't live with that guilt. It would tug at my heartstrings forever.

So now we wait until Sunday to hear the results. What the fuck am I supposed to do until Sunday? Maybe I can lure friends to come over and visit me to take my mind off it. My dog would have to wear one of these 'funnel face' collars if I'm not around so she can't scratch at it, and I don't want her to deal with that. Yes - in a great city like NYC I'll be sitting inside until I hear the results. This is absolute agony.