lump on guinea pig

Question
Hello,
I have a male guinea pig.We rescued him about a year ago,and the lady told us he was 1 year old,however,our vet agrees with us that he is older than that,anywhere from 2-4 years old.He has had 3 cysts on his chest which he has had drained.Recently,he developed another one,deep inside his neck next to his larnyx.The vet told us it can not be drained like the other ones because it is too deep,it has to be surgically cut out.We have been monitoring it for a month now,antibiotics have not shrunk it and the vet said it has doubled in size in the past 2 weeks.It is about the size of 2 marbles,and she said it is time to cut it out.We are just very concerned about putting him under.When he has his cysts drained,he wasn't completely put out,just made droggy.The vet said there is always the chance that he wont recover from being under.I really want to know if there are any actual statistics as to what the chances of a guinea pig not waking up from surgery are,to help me make the decison.Also,if we just let it go,how would it really affect his health? Is this really a life threatening thing? Thanks so much.

Answer
It's always risky to use anesthesia on a guinea pig. The cyst near the larynx sounds like the cysts I have periodically with my own herd, a subglottal cyst or abscess. Those can be typically opened, irrigated and kept open until they heal from the inside out.

Your vet however is better equipped to diagnose this because he's already seen it and isn't guessing. This is a tough decision to make and I know how difficult it is for you. At this point you have two choices: leave it alone and see if it will resolve by itself, or go forward with the surgery.  If they're able to open it successfully he should recover just fine.

Discuss this with the vet and see how he feels about either choice. I'm sure he'll understand your apprehension. If it's a simple cyst it's filled with pus it can be drained. Of course there's also a chance it's a tumor and not just a cyst. You've trusted your vet this far, you may have to trust one step further but with a full awareness of the possible outcome.

Please do let me know what you decide and how everything works out.