I feel terrible for Ace. We ended up going through with his surgery, removed the ear mass, a mass in his chest wall, and took the warts off of his back. The cost ended up being right at $5k which is a lot but it included the chest mass and warts, which were not in the initial estimate, so fine, good, okay, whatever.
And this is how he looked when I picked him up:
I'm pretty upset that they had to take the whole ear. The surgeon explained that with dog ears the blood flows around the perimeter much heavier than the middle, so it's difficult to remove a partial ear. I don't fully understand that because some breeds get their ears cropped for aesthetic purposes, and dogs lose parts of ears scrapping with other dogs. But this is the course of action they took. There is the consideration that if this is cancer they've cut to very safe margins. I'm hoping when the hair grows back and partially covers the ear hole he'll look more balanced.
I also hate that they shaved off as much as they did from his head. I know it'll grow back but they probably could have been more precise.
We ditched the big cone and gave him a soft inflatable pillow that goes around his neck, so he's doped up on pain meds and resting as comfortably as he can.
We've had him for a little over a month now and he's been through a ton. I'm hoping this is his nadir and we're on the path to returning him to his best self from here on out.
