Post Op Day 2 and 3

Day 2 was a bit easier to handle for everybody. Peanut spent the night just curled in a ball trying not to move a lot. On the 6^th late at night he did manage to walk over to the litter box and attempt to go to the bathroom. He did need support standing long enough to empty his bladder, but we made it work and baby wipes work great getting litter off fur and cleaning up the urine that gets on his fur.

Peanut was more mobile this morning and he did walk across our house and try and get in the room where his litter box is usually located and then when he didn’t get in there he decided to sleep under our kitchen table which we couldn’t allow him to sleep under for safety reasons mostly I couldn’t get to him if he needed help getting up or if he didn’t make it to the box in time. We had to put up a small garden fence to keep him from heading under there. We had another appointment at 2 pm for a slow releasing pain medication and removal of his fental patch which was keeping his appetite suppressed which had us worried since he didn’t really eat the night before his surgery. About 3 hours after it was removed was the first time he showed interest in eating some food and went to town on about an ounce of food. A bit before his appointment he decided to get up and use his litter box on his own and didn’t need any help but it tired him out and he needed another nap before he could go to his little bed. So we moved him to it so he would be more comfortable. The slow releasing medication seemed to be helping a lot more than his patch probably because he is more like himself just quite high. The ice pack that was sent home was just too heavy for his hips and we have resorted to using some cold eye masks that I had a home. We just place them around his incision site nothing directly on it because it hurts him. He does have some bright red spots right about his hips more on his right side than the other but the vet is not to concerned about it since nothing is warm and they are not swollen. He was impressed that Peanut was up and walking without much help 2 days out.

Day 3 was a very good day for us. He didn’t seem to hurt as much and today he attempted to jump over the garden fence so that was removed and placed just around the table where it reaches the chairs and keeps him from getting crazy ideas. He has spent most of the day just sitting and sleeping. Tomorrow he starts some real rehab where he will be forced to bend his legs in a bicycle manner so the muscles start working again. I know that will not be a good day for us. He hasn’t eaten a ton today but since he is not moving a lot the vet said he probably wouldn’t be eating much. Don’t need tons of food if you not spending energy. We had to swap out his e-collar for a larger one because he figured out how to get his face around the other one. This is a problem we were hoping to avoid but we were prepared to face it.

I honestly was worried about putting him thru this surgery and what kind of return of mobility we would have but this morning I saw him grab his leg from behind the knee and pull his foot towards him he hasn’t done that since last year. He is going to be the kitten we adopted and he will have the life that he deserves. I know that the price tag is a large expense for a lot of people but just looking at him walking and becoming normal again and I know it is all worth it. 

Post Op Day 1

Peanut was dropped off at the hospital yesterday for his blood work and then surgery. He was in surgery for approximately 2 hours and 15 minutes and had no complications from the anesthesia or pain meds. Yesterday filling out his intake forms was very difficult because they ask you as the pet parent how far do you want to take this if things go bad. It was a very tough choice because when is enough and what kind of risks are we looking at. Our family chose to go with save his butt at all cost because we had just lost another pet and our older cat was having a hard time dealing with that death and I couldn’t lose both of them so quickly. We had an amazing surgical team and I spoke with our surgeon at around 2 pm and we were able to see Peanut at 6 pm while he was still mostly sedated.

He was released at 2 pm with tons of aftercare instructions. He is not able to stand up and use his litter box so I was taught how to encourage him to pee. He has come home with an ice pack, anti-inflammatory pills and instructions to make sure he didn’t lay more than 2 hours on each side. I had expected him not being able to use the box because he doesn’t have a ton of muscle in his leg currently and when they got in there it was discovered his muscle atrophy was even worse than they had expected so he will have a longer recovery time to learn to use them again. I am supposed to hold him up and support his body weight so he will start learning to stand up again and support his own weight.

He has been trying to walk around the house all afternoon trying to find the right place to put his head down. He has a Fentanvl patch on to help with the pain and will be receiving an injection for pain tomorrow. So far we have had the blood curdling cries of pain which send a shiver up your spine and attempts to eat his sutures but nothing too extreme for a cat who will be learning to walk again.

His rehab will be using ice pack to keep the swelling down and rotating his leg like you are riding a bicycle for 5 minutes twice a day on each side as tolerated. With Peanut being so food motivated we will be using treats to get him to stretch the muscles down his side. He doesn’t seem to want to eat anything currently but that could be his pain meds wearing off.