It's Not a Tumor

Mikey went to see the vet today to have a lump on his side checked. Doc was able to get a needle in it and suck out some of the ickiness (ew) and check it under the microscope. He said that it definitely wasn’t attached to anything, that he could move it around, and it was just inside the skin (again, ew). He also said that he’s seen that kind of lump a lot before, and it's never anything to worry about. Basically, it's all the crud that normally comes out of the pores, but the pores right there are blocked, and so all the crud is backed up. He said it could get bigger or smaller, it could go away and come back a year later, it could stay the same and never bother the cat, or it could become a huge irritant. He also said that if it gets very big – a size I don’t like looking at – he can lance it or even cut it off. Apparently, that’s almost always a cosmetic issue, and very rarely done because it's actually bothering the cat. So, yay! Mikey doesn’t have a tumor, or anything else really wrong with him. Just a few blocked pores. We can live with that.