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.