Kind of like being hit by a bus

You have had this pimple on your cheek for over a week now. It's been bothering me and I wanted the vet to have a closer look at it. So I rang her to make an appointment and she could see you fairly quickly.

You trembled like a leaf, standing in the vet's office. You were falling apart and gave me that sad look like you wanted to say: "why are you putting me through this?". It was necessary though, to exclude certain cases. The vet got a sterile needle out of her cabinet and you lost it. She could hear your heart beat without using her stethoscope. Oh Rebba... there's no need to be that afraid. I was there to hold you and comfort you and take you back home after the exam..

The vet told me I could expect her phone call somewhere in the afternoon. That worried me a little. It worried me even more, when she called me and used the C-word. I didn't hear much else but that awful word and I even missed the word "benign" when she talked about the tumor on your cheek. She called it a histiocytoma. I needed a piece of paper to write it down because it was such a hard word to remember. It's okay. It is not a malignancy. You won't die. There's even a big chance it will disappear just by itself over time. The vet found it strange though, that you got that tumor. It's rarely found in older dogs (you are 6). It occurs more often in young dogs under the age of 2. But at the same time, greyhounds are more susceptible to this type of tumor than other breeds.

It's benign. It's benign. It's benign.