He's Home!

[Dreamstalker]

Update to this thread. Pirate Kitty is home! The vet was frankly amazed that he did so well after surgery. He was purring when the tech brought him into the client room and desperate for chin scritches.

We had to scramble to shuffle some things around here so he wouldn't have too much of a hard time getting to his food/water/litter box. He was a bit wobbly when we first let him out of the carrier, some of that may be due to him getting used to the cone collar. That side of his face was shaved, as well as his right foreleg for the IV (it makes his paw look even bigger than it is). He did let me take a picture though:

The red blotch above the eye socket is just bruising (it looks worse than it is probably because the skin there is so thin).

He goes back in 10-14 days to have the sutures out and has antibiotics and pain meds. He's used the box, had some salmon and water, now he's just zoning out on the floor of my room.

An advantage to the collar that we just realized--it should be easy to give the liquid medication by mouth as he can't twist his head that much.

[MaggieTheCat]

Boyfriend and I together: AWWWWW POOR KITTY!

He does look pretty rough in that pic. So glad to hear he's doing okay, though. So...is he just going to have an open socket or what, after he gets the sutures out?

Also, wrapping him up in a blanket or a towel (so he can't kick) helps when giving liquid meds, too!

[Der Cute]

He has the "I'm humiliated and I will seek revenge" look on his scratched up face.

I am glad he came through fine though! Give him lots of loves and tell him if he's a good boy you'll give him a WHOLE salmon. :P

Fuzzy says get better, cuz you're behind on cat hair quota, buddy

Cutenoob

[Camry178]

So....how many channels do you get now?

But in all seriousness, I'm glad he's home and doing well. Aarg!

[Dreamstalker]

We're not sure what's going to happen after the sutures come out. I mentioned the silicone eye implants to mom; we both decided that wouldn't make much sense. It would be too easy to forget he has zero vision on that side, so he could wind up hurting himself.

He's on quite a few meds right now, I might wind up typing up a schedule.

ETA: OK, this is bizarre. The topical antibiotic he's getting was given to us still in powder form, we don't know how much water to mix to get the proper concentration, and we were given two bags of syringes for the oral opiates (.3 mL twice a day or as needed). One bag has the proper dosage in all eight syringes, the other (presumably an extra bag) had between .25 and .35 (!)...he refuses to take oral liquid medications anyway so we had asked for the oral stuff to be in pill form. The only thing that's "correct" is the atropine for his eye. Mom's taking all that back to the hospital tomorrow AM to get it ironed out.

[BookstoreEscapee]

Aw, poor baby. Glad he's home; I'm sure he'll adapt quick enough. Give him some scritches from me.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Poor baby . . . I'd hate to see the other kitty.

Seriously though, I'm glad to hear he's doing okay. And give him some sratchies from me too.

[tropicsgoddess]

Poor kitty, glad he's getting better.

[Dreamstalker]

He's getting plenty of attention and scritches; it's kinda funny watching him try to navigate with the collar. He can still get to his window seat though.

[Elspeth]

aaawww the poor baby. And the face says "when I get better you better watch your shoes"

Give him hugs for me!!

[Dreamstalker]

Oh, we've already figured he's plotting some sort of revenge

Because of us not having anything to raise his food dish up high enough, I need to use a small plate and almost hand-feed him (hold the plate up to his mouth inside the collar).

[Cat]

Yeah!!! Pirate cat has returned (Riley says welcome back)


No worries, as soon as his fur grows back you'll only see a slight scar, and by then he'll be back to his normal self.


(on a slight gross topic.....kitty butt wipes....I had to get 'em for Ri when he had the collar :P )


edit: Oh, and he may not get revenge....kitties always know when you saved them )

[Sonoma]

Casey (the Himilayan in my avatar) sends healing thoughts & good wishes as well.

When my Mom's Cockapoo-maltese had to have an eye removed from glaucoma, we just had the vet close up the opening. Now, with a dog, we just let her hair grow out over the missing eye, so it wasn't really obvious (but we still called her "Winky" when Mom wasn't around )

Glad to hear he's home & doing well.

[BookstoreEscapee]

Between this thread and the kitty I saw on the side of road on my way to my parents' house, I had to give my kitties a big snuggle when I got here.

OK, well, one of the kitties...don't know where Girl is hiding. And boy was sleeping on the couch but he's not in a snuggling mood so he got up and walked away.

Cats.

[Dreamstalker]

He's gone through about four lives at this point...let's see:

'92, hit and dragged by car, we enlisted one of the best surgeons in the state for small animal reconstructive surgery to put his face back together. Unfortunately nobody saw the car's license plate, the driver could have been charged (MA has some of the toughest animal cruelty laws in the country, the sportscar tard was also doing 50 in a school zone). That put the whole eye thing in motion (severe facial nerve damage, so his right eye had no tear production and no blink reflex).

'98: stroke at which time we discovered his enlarged heart, was put on medication which led to:

'99 or '00: massive heart attack on Christmas Eve, mad race to Angell Animal Medical Center in the middle of a blizzard. It was later discovered that the blood thinner prescribed by our vet at the time caused it (it was actually mom's doctor who confirmed this, why was a human-dose medicine being given to an animal?). We stopped that med and changed vets shortly afterwards, also at which time it was discovered that the enlarged heart was back to normal.

'04: developed ulcer on the bad eye. Was managed with a topical antibiotic and artificial tears.

'05: diagnosed with diabetes, I don't think there were any complications as it was caught early.

Christmas '08: kidney failure, it was very touch-and-go for a few days.

Now: corneal perforation which was luckily caught in time. If the eyeball itself had ruptured, that could have been Really Bad. We still don't know what caused the hole; could have been any number of things as that eye was unable to produce tears or blink to wash out irritants.