Tag Archives: cordelia

On the limit of post-operative instructions…

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When you leave the vet’s office after one of your little furballs has surgery, they send you home with a post-op care sheet. In theory, this paperwork will tell you what to do, what issues to be on the lookout for, and how to handle some basic situations if they crop up. The post-op sheet isn’t and can’t be an exhaustive reference.

The reason I know this is because it doesn’t address, in any way, the scenario I was faced with this morning. By yesterday evening, Cordelia seems to have overcome her post-surgery lethargy. I’ve seen her eating, drinking, and eliminating – all the things you’re supposed to monitor as your patient recovers.

I don’t suppose any read ahead material really prepares you for starting the day to realize that sometime during the night, the kitten has gone head first into her food dish and smeared food around the circumference of the cone. She also managed to get the edge of the cone into her litter and had that clumped to the cone.

Under normal circumstances (or perhaps with a normal kitten), you might be tempted to think I’d just remove the cone, clean it up, and then put it back on her. The thing is, Cordy remains what I politely like to call selectively feral. She’ll accept being touched on her terms, but when I initiate it, she’s off like a rocket to the nearest available hiding place. She simply will not be “handled.” Thanks to her slight build, those places are most often under things like the bed or dresser and therefore bloody inconvenient places from which to try extracting her.

This leaves me in a bit of a conundrum. I don’t want to put her in a position where she can defile her sutures, but overall, I wonder which is better, removing the cone, cleaning it, and most likely being unable to put her back in it, or leaving her to wander the house for the next week with a crud encrusted cone?

Yeah, there are definitely things the post-op instructions don’t cover.

A continuing tale of two cats…

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Anya has spent more of her life with me wearing a cone than not. I feel badly about that, but it has been an unfortunate, necessary evil to get her through her initial eye infection, the corrective surgery, and now her spay procedure. I wish I were half as resilient as this little seven pound cat seems to be.

All the literature is quick to point out that spaying your cat is a simple, outpatient surgery. Most of the authoritative online resources say that in 48 hours, your pet should be back to something of their normal selves. The spay itself may be an entirely common surgery, but it’s still invasive as hell, and Anya wasn’t one of those who came around in the usual fashion. Fortunately, she was eating well, drinking regularly, and moving around enough to get to and from the litter box as needed. It’s just now, a full week after her most recent surgery that she’s starting to come around to what I’d consider normal behaviors for her.

This morning she was on my bed demanding ear scratches as soon as my alarm went off. She then followed me around while I prepared and delivered breakfast to all the members of the menagerie. She perched in her overwatch position on the cat tree while I got caffeinated. It doesn’t seem particularly newsworthy unless you know she spent the last week snoozing for 22 hours out of every 24 and often not budging for 8-12 hours at a time. Based on what was reported as “normal,” my level of concern for how she was getting along was beginning to elevate dramatically.

Here’s hoping that this is the start of trending back towards normal… Which should get her there just in time for Cordelia to go under the knife for her own procedure next Monday. Getting these critters settled in has made for an awfully long spring. Had I known what I was in for, I might have made some radically different decisions when picking these two out of the mix. File it away as one of the very few times I’m glad I didn’t know then what I know now.

Maybe by Independence Day, we’ll have everyone off the sick and injured list and start seeing what normal really looks like. I’ve probably just jinxed myself by even thinking about it.

Caught up and cleared…

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I was finally able to corral Cordelia and get her over to the vet for her first visit and to get her caught up on vaccinations. The general recommendation is that sort of thing should happen within a week of bringing a new fuzzy little family member home. Since Cordy spent 23 hours a day of her first two months here happily ensconced under my bed, I opted to extend that timeline instead of gearing up for a knockdown, drag out fight.

It’s only been in the last two or three weeks that Cordy has decided she doesn’t mind getting petted or catching a quick nap while laying on her human. To this day, picking her up in my arms is entirely out of the question. All interactions are 100% on her terms. I assume that’s part of the reason she spent several days being mad at me after being the victim of the well-orchestrated early morning snatch and grab operation that led to her getting poked and prodded.

I imagine it’ll be a while before I can even start thinking about trying that again. She’s very studiously avoiding getting within arm’s reach. Now that she’s fully vaxxed and medically cleared the next step is scheduling her spay surgery. I’m going to target sometime about a month from now… mostly so I can let her build up a renewed, if false, sense of security.

She probably wouldn’t agree with me, but I’m feeling good that we have this first step knocked off the to do list.