Shayna came home from surgery. She had three tumors removed. One was confirmed as a mast cell tumor, the other two have been comfirmed as benign. Below you will find photos of my girl post surgery, and through the healing process.

Neck incision

Because of the location of the other two tumors (one on each stifle) special precautions were taken to help the incisions to heal. The stifle (knee) is an area of high mobility, with very thin and tight skin. The margins that were taken were 3 cm in all directions, leaving very little tissue left to close the incision with. The cotton batting was sewn to Shayna's skin, pulling the skin up to help relieve tension on the incision. In addition, small holes were cut in rows, all around the incision, also to help relieve the tension. My poor girls leg resembled swiss cheese more than a dogs leg.

This is the incision on her left stifle. This incision also took precautions to help the healing by sewing drainage tubes on either side of the incision to help relieve tension. Unfortunately these measures were not enough. The sutures ripped through three separate times until finally there was not enough tissue to suture closed again. So currently we are managing an open wound and allowing it to heal on its own.

This is the wound we were left with after the sutures ripped out for the third time. This is three weeks post surgery. You can see stay sutures around the wound. Initially we tied a bandage to her leg using the stay sutures like you would use the holes in a tennis shoe for lacing. The bandage did not stay on, however, and it was determined by the vet that it was causing more irritation than it was helping, so we have gone to leaving the wound open without a bandage, and cleaning it twice a day and applying an ointment.

This is the wound one week later. Four weeks post surgery. You can see that it is healing, but the progress is slow. The light pink band around the edge of the wound is new skin.

Shayna is enjoying her first time out to play since her surgery. We allowed her out to play with her jolly ball (supervised, of course) Playing with her jolly ball is one of her favorite things. This is about four days after the last picture was taken.

5 weeks post surgery. It is healing, but it is slow progress. You can see that the wound is smaller than it was.

6 weeks post surgery. Healing is speeding up. Hopefully it will be closed in the next three weeks.

Shayna 7 weeks post surgery. Not as much obvious healing this week as last week. It is healing. There was a worry that the layers of tissue might not adhere to each other. It cant be seen in the photos very well, but you could fit your finger up to the first joint underneath the first layer. In the photo above the tissue is very nearly adhering all the way around. There is just a tiny portion that isnt, and I can see that it is making progress.

Week 8. It is definitely healing. There is not nearly so much of a divit now, and the wound itself is about the size of my thumb pad.

Week 9. The wound is now about the size of a dime. It's looking really good. It shouldn't be long now before it is healed over.

Week 10. A tremendous amount of healing. I am really pleased with how it looks. Hopefully it will be completely closed in another week...surely no more than two. I just can say how thrilled I am with how this is looking!

Week 13. Shayna is completely healed. The wound did close over by week 11, but I didn't manage to get any photos. She is terribly scarred on both back legs, but is at least cancer free now. If anyone has any info on how to reduce or diminish scar tissue, I would be greatly appreciative!