Large bleeding lump on elderly robo!!!

[aragneer]

Hi all,

I haven't been on here in AGESSS but I've logged back in as tonight I'm quite distressed. I have an elderly robo called Waffles, who has been restless for the past few nights. He's an extremely busy little chap anyway and is impossible to handle. I noticed he's been scratching at the cage and getting stuck in things quite a bit now (if he rolls over in his sand, he needs help getting up).

Well today, I was video calling with my boyfriend, showing him how he is doing and I noticed blood on some of his bedding! I panicked and saw he had a wet spot on his head. I then saw a large red lump on the side of his neck. It's very raised with a red bit in the middle that looks like it's been bleeding!

My dad managed to handle him and have a look and it looked rather bulbous. He tried to squeeze a little to see if it was hard or not but we couldn't tell and we left Waffles be.

Since then, I found him chewing on it and he has opened a new piece of the wound! I swabbed some warm salty water on it, which he hated and now he's settled down to sleep.

I don't know what to do or what it could be. I've been advised that he is too old to have the lump removed as he most likely wouldn't wake up and that emptying the abscess could cause him to go into shock and really, that there is nothing I can do... tbh, we recently moved to an area where small animal hospitals are just non-existent..it's all farms!

Is there anything I can do on my own or to ease him a little? I think it's an abscess, due to how it has just burst open on something and the size it is - I used to see them on guinea pigs a lot!

Should I continue swabbing salt water morning and night to prevent infection and stuff and just monitor him?

He's been looking older and older the past few months but still has SO much energy.

[aragneer]

Small update: He was making some scuffling noises so I just checked him. He was eating some mealworms, woo! I was worried he hadn't been! He looks a tiny bit brighter since I gave him a salt water swab!

So that's a small victory..

[cypher]

Really sorry to hear about Waffles..
I don't think there is much you can do yourself, can you get to any vet at all? He's probably in pain so even a vet that isn't experienced with small animals should be able to prescribe some metacam for pain relief, if it is an abscess he would need antibiotics & it is possible it may be something else like a tumour of some sort.