Lung scarring = No surgery?

[pigsandrats]

Tima has a lump. It's under her right arm, and it has blown up in size in just a week. The vet said its a lymph node. She wouldn't hesitate to remove it, except that Tima has such severe lung scarring from previous URI's and her breathing is just horrible. She's noisy, even with Baytril, Prednisoe and we even tried lasix.
Is it possible to operate on a rattie with bad lungs? My vet doesn't think so.
An exotic vet up in Buffalo looked at Tima's x-rays, and she said she had never seen anything like it before, and was surprised that Tima was still alive. That was about 5 months ago. Tima was doing okay for awhile, now the breathing is bad again, and the lump appeared.
Tima is 19 months old.

I need advice from you guys......

[Marybelle]

The lung scarring does dramatically increase the risk of an inhaled anesthetic, unfortunately.  And if you've got two separate vets telling you that it doesn't look good, that's even worse.  I personally wouldn't risk the surgery (I've passed on surgery before for some of my girls who had lung issues, in fact).  You might opt for some other possibly therapies though.  Find out if your vet has some alternatives to surgery for rats with lumps. 

[elegy]

we emergency spayed suzie despite her bad lungs and it made her much much much worse. kind of the same sort of situation- no good answer, no matter what you decide to do.

it's a hard choice 

[pigsandrats]

It sounds like my little girl is doomed, doesn't it?

I'll discuss with the vet alternative options regarding treatment.
When the vet withdrew some cells to look at under a microscope, she said some of the cells looked suspicious. Poor Tima squeaked during the procedure, and then it bled afterward.....

My poor little girl....

[Sugarfoxx]

I am so sorry....I wish I could say that it is ok but in all honesty I cant.

When the rats had SDA and they were all congested etc....the vet had to pick one of the rats and put him under to do the tests to find out what virus or bacteria we were dealing with. He asked which rat I wanted him to use.  The rats that were at the vets at the time were all males and all my squishy males that I just simply adore.  I couldnt pick one....I felt that it was like a sacrifice in a way.
Sigh...he picked Kirby.
Kirby died that evening.  I am sure that putting him under did not help since he already had SDA virus affecting his lungs but we HAD to do it.

My honest to God true opinion is hard to give.  I mean....you never know...she may do just fine, but on the other hand since the vets say they dont think it is safe....I would worry about their opinion too.

Let her decide!  You may be surprised...she may be able to tell you in her own way what she wants.

[Grace Jr]

Personally, I wouldn't risk surgery.  There are other options out there, and one of them may very well work for you.  Using Pau D'Arco is one of the more common things I've seen mentioned on here, and I've used it myself - on Tripoli.  I didn't see any change with him, but, he had severe scarring and a lung tumor, as opposed to mammary.

[pigsandrats]

GraceJr,
How much of Pau D'Arco do you give?

[Grace Jr]

I don't remember now, since it was back in April when I was giving it to him.  If I remember correctly, it was something along 5-10 drops per day.  10 closer to the end of it.  There are others that can give you more advice with it, and more accurate information.   Doing a search on here should provide a slew of threads as well.

[pigsandrats]

Thanks, Grace. 

And thanks to all of you who responded. I have such a huge amount of respect for all of your opinions, and when trying to decide these things it helps enormously to have input.

*hugs* to all of you....