The Struggle of "Not Quite Right"

     So Mort has a strange lump where his foreleg meets his chest. It popped up about 3 weeks ago. It's not the first time this has happened and he has a lot of scar tissue in the area so I usually chock it up to that being an issue. About a week after it popped up he started to be reactive about it and acted like it was painful Since that was a new thing I went ahead and had the vet look at him. She wasn't too worried about it, but one of her theories was that since he has so much scar tissue there that his lymph nodes in that area may swell more than normal when he's fighting a bug.

     I'm leaning more and more toward the idea that Mort has some sort of bug. His eyes have been watery and a little angry in spite of it being winter and we haven't been having any fly issues for a bit. The BM has heard him take some deep breaths when he's been sleeping/dozing that are unusual. He also usually stinks up his stable clothing in the winter from lying in his pee at night and none of his clothes stink--pointing to him not laying down (or he learned how to avoid his pee but that's less likely). Our rides have also just been so-so lately. He's not been terrible by any means but we've been struggling with things that haven't really been issues for a while.

     I could totally be making things up in my mind. His lump has gone down a tiny bit (I think, it's hard when you inspect it every day). We gave him a 1/2 tab of Bute a couple days ago and I've been putting ointment in his eyes. They're still runny, but less angry. He's got a great appetite and is drinking fine.

     I'm going to try and give him a few more days and see how things go. I'm going to back even further off on our riding and not really ask him for anything. I want to check his temp, but I imagine it'll be normal. He's most likely totally fine and is maybe just adjusting to winter hitting us quickly. Or the painful lump is just scar tissue that he's uncomfortable with enough to affect riding and laying down but not enough to be unsound. Or he's fighting a little bug. If I still have suspicions next week (or he develops actual symptoms) I'll give the vet another call. It would sure be nice if they could talk to us.