I took Barney Boos back to Leominster yesterday for his op. Over the weekend I'd noticed that he seemed to having problems with his mouth so thought that maybe a tooth abscess could be the problem. He was quite bright and perky yesterday, practically back to normal and it wasn't possible to do much investigation without knocking him out. No problems with his mouth or teeth. The ultra sound highlighted a small area just under the lymph node but when it was opened up there was no pocket of pus or foreign body. The lymph node was removed and sent off for analysis but the vet's not expecting it to be anything other than normal now. It could be that the area highlighted by the ultra sound was the remains of something that had virtually cleared up with the antibiotics - possibly a very small foreign body (bit of thorn?) that had dissolved but no definitive answer.
On the plus side he's much brighter and the challenge is stopping him scratching the wound without resorting to the dreaded bucket. We've got more antibiotics and eye drops and are going back to Leominster next Thursday. I know this is much better than I expected but while I'm really grateful, I just wish I knew exactly what the problem was