After significant ultrasound searching, the same black area was seen that was noticed by our vet a few days earlier, and a needle aspiration was attempted. Nothing. Got absolutely nothing. Two excellent veterinarians were involved with this search, too. Fluid was injected, and it was immediately absorbed, and nothing again was able to be extracted. Before giving up, genticin was injected in the site. We are talking a significant amount of education and experience were involved with this whole deal.
The two vets there were perplexed at the whole out of alignment issues that Lilly is having with her top line to shoulders, neck, etc., and that she is really not reacting to any sort of probing. Her left shoulder shows significant edema with no reason... so far. Then it was decided to go ahead and shave Lilly's wither area, and down a bit on her right side, because there seemed to be edema, now, on that side. More ultrasound was done. We looked at scapula bone... way cool experience for me I might add... muscles, we could even see one big vein's blood flow. I it was soooo interesting, but still perplexing.
Finally, the ultra sound camera was placed on Lilly's withers, and there is was! The tippy tops of her wither bones were all jagged - broken with some floating bone fragments! Yowza! How on EARTH did THAT happen?! That's what I want to know, and that's exactly what the vets want to all know, too! She had to have been, initially, minimally injured back at the first part of July, or even earlier, but it wasn't noticed because she's got an exceptionally wooly coat unless shaved, and I didn't notice the problem when I did shave her on July 15 and took photos. Then, at the first of August, she had to have been reinjured big time! But, on the top of her withers?
Lilly is on continued rest/care, and is now going to be a long term rescue until she is healed up from this crazy odd accident. I want to thank everyone that has donated towards Lilly's condition/care/aftercare and now, long term residence here at our rescue. Her healing journey has just begun. We are all very relieved that it was NOT an abscess, nor a mass, nor cancerous mass. So many things could have been far worse than this!
Again, thank you!
Ginny