Tumour discovered on liver.Advice needed urgently pls.

Hi Vets. I would really appreciate some of your knowledge please. 4.5cm growth on 5.5kg Maltese X poodle discovered during ultrasound for a unrelated abdominal bleed. Referral to specialist has been sent. Have now had a crazy expensive CT scan, but waiting on results. I need further advice. I was so emotional I forgot to ask some of my questions to specialist. I'm freaking out. Do any Vets know the frequency these things are cancerous? If it wasn't cancerous does it keep growing, or is it something your better leaving alone? Is it that common for it to cause spontaneous abdominal bleeding and need emergency visit (which cost 3k Aus dollar). How dangerous is the surgery? I've heard ivermectin is being investigated for human cancer, is this a thing for dog cancer? Is chemo a thing, how badly would chemo or radiation affect quality of life? What do I do if they decide it's un-operable? He seems so healthy otherwise, but apparently spontaneous bleeding is a high ish risk and if that happens it'll end up costing me another 3 thousand plus a euthanasia cost of I can't treat the tumour. Because there's no way I could put him down without checking the cause pain and what if it's not a bleed. It seems insane to put him down if his acting like normal. Surgery can be super expensive (up to about 6k au dollar), if it's not going to actually buy him much more time, that'd a high price. If it in theory would buy him a few years I'd sell/chop off my legs to fix him. Is there anything in particular I need them to check for before doing surgery? If surgery is not an option due to complications of position for instance, is there another option ?   I am beyond attached to my boy. I love him so so much. He loves me to. We are joined at the hip. I literally get anxious just worrying about him aging. But it's really important I do the right thing for him...not me. I can't make him suffer. Pleaseeee can someone offer some advice/wisdom. I understand it's hard without the scan, but hypotheticals are ok.

Hello there and first off, here is a huge hug.  I can hear that you are so worried about your poodle / maltese that your mind is racing with all kinds of possibities.  You maybe right to be worried, because bleeding into the abdomen in particular tends to be a serious symptom.   I think that there are two problems: 1) A lump - as yet unidentified - has been seen on the liver.  We hear 'lump' and think 'cancer' -sometimes even metastatic cancer, which may certainly be a possibility - but liver lumps can also suggest parasites (some of which cause bleeding), inflammation, medical liver disease, twisted lobes, heamatomas and scarring.  Apparent lumps or changes to the liver can be benign or even 'medical' (as opposed to surgical).  For example, when livers are struggling for some reason, they tend to try to grow new tissue, which comes up in a knobble or several. 2) blood in the abdomen can be secondary to trauma or a bleeding cancer, but also to clotting problems (these can be genetic, secondary to poisoning, secondary to certain parasites / liver flukes, other liver disease, cancer or blood diseases).  I have commonly seen it occur as a result of splenic cancer. Sooo.....    I think that your vet is right to investigate further.   Because there is such a wide range of possibilities for what they are seeing, they will want to start crossing possibilities off the possibilities list.   They might, for example, propose sampling the bleed, checking blood, clotting and so on.  Good questions are 1) what are the main diseases you are worried about?  2) what are you doing to tell one from another and 3) is my pet stable / being kept stable in the meantime.   I would also reccommend 4) Keeping asking two questions: 'What is the best possible scenario based on what you know?'  'What can youpredict about costs?'  I hear that money isnt the main concern here, but costs aren't only financial - they can relate to animal and human wealfare.  As a diagnosis starts to become apparent, the big picture will be important to take into consideration, however the problem list looks.  Please will you let us know how you get on?