I can not believe that it has been three weeks since Howl’s surgery.

The last three weeks FLEW by. The first five days of Howl’s recovery were exhausting and terrifying for me. I posted my 24 hours post-amputation blog before the sedation was fully out of Howl’s system, and he didn’t do so well at first after the sedation wore off. He started having episodes where he would thrash and fling himself. It was the scariest thing I have ever witness an animal do. He started having the episodes two days after his surgery and they came out of nowhere; one second he was sleeping on my chest in bed, the next second, he was flying off of the bed and doing flips in the air. Coincidentally, the vet was calling to see how he was doing just as he was having an episode, and they told me to bring him right in after I answered the phone in a panic. After an adjustment in his medication (he was on buprenorphine, which is an opioid,) he started to settle down, but not before ripping some of his nails COMPLETELY out. After that it was smooth sailing. Howl never had an issue using his litter box, cleaning himself or eating. After the surgery, he immediately seemed like a happier kitten.

He is finally getting to be a kitten.

From the moment that I became aware of Howl’s injury, all I wanted was for him to be a normal kitten; boy, did I get my wish. Howl is a completely different cat than he was before the surgery. When he is not sleeping (which I swear he only sleeps while I’m at work so that he can stay up all night and keep me up all night), he is running around and carrying toys in his mouth, chasing his brothers and chewing their tails, jumping up and down the cat tree as if he had four legs, and kissing and cuddling me. He is SO happy and SO goofy, so, so goofy. Sometimes I jokingly say that I wish he was still on the medication because I miss the sedative side effects.

In terms of his amputation sight and recovery now, it looks AMAZING. It’s hard to tell that he even had the surgery or if he was just born without a leg. His stitches came out last week and yesterday was his last dose of antibiotics so now he is medication free. He hasn’t had any episodes in two weeks and his nails are almost fully healed.

Here is a photo of Howl from today, shortly after I awoke him from his slumber.

Here is a photo of his incision site. I am still amazed that it looks like that not even a month after surgery.

I purchased the cats a new cat tower as I thought it would be perfect for Howl as it has ramps going up so that he can climb. I have not seen him use a single ramp once. He jumps up by himself and gets to the very top by himself (it’s a six foot tower!)

 

Howl’s favourite thing to do during recovery was to cuddle and watch bird shows. I am that crazy cat mom.

Brother Ace is always willing to help clean Howl if he missed any spots.

Brother Ace also makes a very good foot stool.

Howl’s surgery went great. 

I dropped Howl off at the vet at 7 am on Thursday, November 30 2017. Before they took him, I got to meet with the surgeon and ask any questions and express any concerns I had. I took up nearly an hour of the surgeon’s time, which I kept apologizing for, but the surgeon was great. He explained every part of Howl’s itinerary. From them taking him from me, to the pre-op bloodwork, shaving, anaesthetic, intubation and the actual procedure. He explained to me that he would save Howl’s surgery until the end of his routine spay and neuter surgeries for the day, that way he could take as much time as he needed with Howl and not worry about becoming behind. He explained that removing the limb was the easiest part, but after removing the limb, he liked to take his time making the remaining area as aesthetically pleasing as possible and making the nicest looking surgery site. He told me has been a surgeon for over 26 years and had done thousands of amputations. He also said although I opted for him to stay overnight at their 24/7 care facility, that Howl really didn’t need to stay overnight as long as there were no complications and that he would probably be most comfortable and happy at home with his family, but it was completely up to me. I decided to wait and see how the surgery went and how he woke up after the anesthesia to make my decision. After almost an hour of talking, and me wringing my own hands so much that they bruised, I kissed Howl goodbye.

I spent the day trying to distract myself. I went out for breakfast with my nana, spent time with my best friend and her puppy and went out for dinner with my friends. I tried to keep myself busy or I would stress and stare at my phone waiting for the call to let me know how his surgery went. At 2:44 pm, his amazing surgical vet tech called me to let me know he had done amazingly. He was awake, eating and standing up on his own already. I asked her “how cute of a tripod kitty does he make?” to which she responded “the absolute cutest, I took some pictures and I am sending them to you right now.” She then asked if I was going to take him home the same day and I asked her opinion and she said he was doing really well and that it was my decision, but she said it wouldn’t be unreasonable to bring him home that evening. I decided to leave him there until the late evening for more monitoring and pick him up after 8 pm. His vets, vet techs and everyone at the clinic made this difficult situation much easier, they were absolutely amazing.

I did my final preparations while I excitedly waited for pick up time. I set up a large crate with his litter, food, bed and toys. I searched for premature baby clothing and sewed them. When it was finally 8 pm, we went to pick him up. They brought him out and I cried. I had seen the photos of him but seeing him half-stoned, missing a limb and with a large suture site was a little harder than I expected. Everyone was very understanding and comforting.

When we got home, I fed Howl, gave him his antibiotics and pain medications and put him on the floor of the livingroom while he ate. When he was done eating, he RAN up the stairs. He. Ran. Not even 12 hours post-op. After I sat there stunned for half a second, I chased after him to stop him from running because I didn’t want him to hurt himself and rip open his stitches. I found him upstairs using his litter box. My two biggest fears after the surgery (other than complications) was 1) him losing his appetite and 2) him having trouble with the litter. He tossed my fears aside within 15 minutes of getting home. I thought it was going to be easy to keep him relatively sedentary while he healed. I was apparently incorrect.

As expected, he was very tired. He is still very tired. He slept all night long, woke up for medicine and breakfast, and now he is sleeping in bed. He’s not a fan of his little t-shirt, but he’s even less a fan of the cone. The vet techs told me they had to take the cone off at the vet because he really didn’t like it. I put it on at home and he constantly thrashed around when it was on, so that isn’t going to work.

Here are some photos of him post-o.p. I know many if not all of you reading this have most likely seen your own pet’s incision, but just in case, warning that some of the photos have his visible incision.

This is the photo that his amazing vet tech sent me when he woke up from surgery. He looked like very drugged up kitty.

After he came home and had some dinner and medicine, he was ready to go to bed.

I always said I wanted a Sphinx kitten and now I partially have a Sphinx kitten since most of his upper body has been shaved.

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