Sometimes You’ve Gotta Do What You’ve Gotta Do

Pettigrew has been sporting a slow-growing benign melanoma for the past few years. We’ve been watching and hoping it would stop. But it just kept trucking along.

It’s quite unsightly. We left it since, in essence, it’s merely a cosmetic issue and we didn’t want to put our mature dog through the rigors of anesthesia and surgery.

It didn’t bother Pettigrew and we worked hard not to let it bother us.

About a week and a half ago, that all changed.

It was late at night, why do these situations always develop late on a weekend night?! I heard Pettigrew’s tags jingling, the click of his claws against the hardwood floors, and then silence.

Like Miss Clavel in the Madeline books, I turned on my light and thought, “Something is not right.”

And, like Miss Clavel, I got up to investigate.

Pettigrew was perched with his paws on the bottom step, peering hopefully up at me. 

What did I find? Blood. Spots on the floor, on his paws, and on his chest. It appeared that the melanoma had started bleeding and wouldn’t stop.

Just as Pettigrew’s atypical nighttime behavior alerted me to a problem, my exclamation alerted my husband.

He addressed himself to cleaning up while I applied pressure to stop the bleeding.

Then Pettigrew curled up on the sofa. I got my book and curled up next to him; we both needed time to settle down before going back to sleep.

Clearly, the melanoma needed to go. We didn’t want to put Pettigrew (not to mention me) through another night like that.

At first the surgery was scheduled for late March, but then then the vet was able to fit him in this coming Tuesday…. In two days.

It’s the right thing to do. 

I keep telling myself that.

For the pre-op visit, Pettigrew got in the car with pleasure. Rode sitting up and looking out the windows. The ride home was a bit more subdued. I provided the comfort-food dog biscuits. 

Tuesday, February 2 is the big day. Please hold Pettigrew in your thoughts for a successful procedure!