Misty Grey

This was an attempt to get another close-up of where her scar is. Not much left to see… It really does look like just a ripple in the fur.  The muscles above and in front of the scar seem to be… I don’t know… kinda bulging a little bit? and I am wondering if that is normal – did they shift around, or maybe bulk up because she is using them differently?  She still seems to want to scratch the area around the top of the scar, I am wondering if that is still bugging her or something.  Or maybe where it’s sewn together she has some ingrown fur or something?  Can that happen?  It’s too furry now for me to look and see what if anything is actually going on there. When i first noticed it seemed bulgy I got scared, but when I put her collar on her I found that her neck doesn’t seem any bigger and in the past few weeks it hasn’t gotten more bulgy, so I don’t think it’s a return of cancer or anything like that.

And here’s her purrty mug, can’t resist!

As I type this she is draped over my lap, sound asleep, her paws are even twitching now and then.  In this photo you can see the brownish patches of fur on her shoulder.  My old vet theorized that the brown was due to the fur getting dried out from the sunshine when she goes outside.  It seems like the brown patches were getting larger as the years went by, and nothing I did seemed to change or fix it.  But what is growing back seems mostly not to be brown.  So I think it will be interesting when her fur is all grown back – will she end up with a line where the brown ends and the newly-grown fur begins?  Maybe if I gave her a whole body shave the rest would grow back in not-brown too?  I would miss her fluffiness if I did that though, and I am betting she wouldn’t find that haircut dignifed.

It is starting to feel like her fur is taking FOREVER to grow back.

I’ve noticed that the parts growing back don’t seem to have any brown in them.  I think she is going to have a line where the browned fur stops and the newly-grown-back-in grey will start.

I’ve gone back to iPhone 5 finally and I did miss the lovely photos it takes.  🙂

Misty says “Good morning feed me please!”  Snuggled up against my knee so she can keep tabs on me in case I get up.  She is showing me all three of her little pink paw pads.

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I’ve been trying to get photos of her outside but she mostly likes to go out at night.  I got this one the other afternoon of her asking me to please open the door because she is done being outside.  Too cute!  Most of the time that she is running around it is night time, so there isn’t much potential for good photos.  And a flash isn’t very helpful, since most of the time we are sort of wandering all around the neighborhood and she goes into other people’s yards.  I don’t want to creep out the neighbors.

Earlier this week I was petting Misty and realized there was only one little bit of scab still stuck in her fur.  So I took a look and saw that it was only tangled in a few hairs, so I took the little scissors and got it out of her fur – yay!

When I pet her the area around and under the scar still feels… lumpy and above it seems a bit swollen. But I figure it will continue to even out with time. When I had stitches they took awhile for everything to fully heal up and smooth out – I know I just have to be patient.

Here’s a picture of her navigating the bushes in front of the house. This was the same day as the other photo, she was already worried about the thunder as you can probably tell from her face.

On Monday afternoon we went outside for a little while. I started doing some yard work but then Misty heard thunder and became desperate to go back inside.  This is her waiting by the door for me to let her back in.

How often does a cat obligingly yawn right when you are already pointing a camera at her?

Too bad there was so much sun coming in from the window behind her, I’ve got a spot right in the middle.

Just checking in to say hi.  Not a whole lot of news to report.  It’s 4 weeks since I brought Misty home from surgery, and she is doing great.  Other than being hoppy and a lot more lovey than she was before hand, Misty seems to be back to business as usual.  A few days after she got her stitches out I took her “stairs” away from the sink and bed (after I found her on the bed in the spare room I am sure she didn’t need the stairs to my bed any more, although she kept using them til I took them away).  She did miss a jump to the sink the other morning, she landed a bit short and I think if she’d had two front paws she’d have been able to save it, but catching the edge with just the one paw meant she swung off to one side and then down.  I kinda caught her and eased her to the ground so it wasn’t too bad, and it didn’t stop her from jumping back up there the next day and the day after that.

We’ve been taking a walk around the neighborhood every evening.  She likes to walk over to the next door neighbor’s yard and sit there and look around for a few minutes.  Then to the the neighbor’s yard on the other side of them, and sit for another few minutes, and so on all the way down the block.  She seems to go a little farther every time.  We didn’t get quite to the end of the block last night – the last house’s sprinklers came on while we were next door to them.  I wonder what all my neighbors think I am doing walking around behind our row of houses.  The mosquitoes have been out every evening and now if I go out without my sweatshirt I get eaten alive, but it is often so warm that it isn’t very much fun to wear it either.  I hate to put bug spray on just for a walk down the block though… it smells so awful and then I have to spend the rest of the evening with that or get right into the shower.  I think Misty has gotten bitten a few times too – she was scratching a spot last night and she made fur fly.  I stopped her and scritched where she was scratching – I couldn’t find anything but she sure seemed to be enjoying it.

Her scar is getting hard to find amidst all the fur that is growing in.  You can still see about where it is because of the waves in the fur, and there are still some scabs that haven’t come off – mostly toward the top.  That part was also the slowest to heal so I am not sure whether it is taking longer because of that or just because she can’t reach it to lick.  Someone recommended I put coconut oil on it to soften the skin and so I’ve done that a few times.  It seems like it might be helping, the whole area seems less crunchy now.  But Misty really LIKES the coconut oil so I am not sure it is even staying on long enough to do much of anything since she just licks it right off.  Good to know she likes that though, I can use it like a treat in a pinch.

When I was in the store the other day I was talking to a pet nutritionist who was there to promote Hill’s, and she was trying to convince me that their food would work for Misty instead of her hypoallergenic stuff.  I looked at their ingredients and they all had fish oil.  Since I am avoiding seafood for her I couldn’t buy it, but there was one kind that used coconut oil instead (that’s what her hypoallergenic stuff uses too), so I brought home a small bag of that.  She is having some digestive issues right now and I can’t figure out what is causing it (possibly she is simply eating too much grass when she goes outside) but I plan to let her try a little when that is all cleared up.  I don’t think I would replace her food with the Hill’s stuff since the one with coconut oil is a diet cat food, but if she likes it then it might make a nice treat once in a while or I could mix a few kibbles in with her regular food so she isn’t bored of it.

Misty says “Good morning!  Feed me please!”

“…or you can pet me for awhile and THEN feed me…”

This is the best photo of the scar I could get lately. it’s from last night.  Now that she is alert and off meds and feeling good she doesn’t sleep so heavily.  If I am not stealthy then she sits up and looks at me whenever I funble for the camera.  Once she sits up her head hides the view of the scar, so I keep missing my chances to photograph it. I love the way her little velvety paw sticks out when she sleep on top of her leg.

Read the 04-24-14 post for news.  This is just a backdated photo to show what the scar looked like three weeks out.  It was very crispy and dry and scabby. This was before I started putting coconut oil on it:

Misty chased the Red Dot for a minute today – first time since her surgery. The last time I tried she just watched it. Sorry, there will be no video of that because I can’t control the laser pointer and the camera at the same time.

She spent a good hour or two outside supervising me while I trimmed the hedges. She lounged in the sun, sat in front of the hedge, behind it, beside it, and under me while I was working. I also saw her rolling in the grass – another first since her surgery.

I’m really glad she is content to just hang around while I’m outside. I want to give her outside time but I don’t feel like it’s safe for her to be out there unsupervised or to wander off by herself. I put her collar with a bell on her, and her tag, so she will be easy to hear even when I can’t see her, and easy to return if she ever does give me the slip and someone finds her.

And… This is what happens when you get your smartphone camera right in a sleepy kitty’s face with the flash on:

I was going through my emails today and I found Misty’s X-rays, they were taken about a month apart.

This first one is from Nov 13 and you can see the mass as well as a small divot in the bone of her leg, which made the vets suspect that it was growing into her bone.

The second X-ray was on Dec 9 2013, and it shows the mass has thickened.  The vets said it was bigger but I have a hard time seeing any difference size-wise.  It was at that point starting to sort of wrap around her leg though, which I think you can’t see because that would be obscured by the bones.  The divot is still clearly there and I think I can see a second groove starting to form maybe.

I think I have a copy of her ultrasound somewhere, when I find it I will post it.

Misty got her stitches out today.   She was so miserable when I put her in the car, she huddled on my lap the whole ride there.  At the vet she waited in the waiting room on her own chair like a little lady while I sorted out some billing stuff with the tech at the counter.  Then while we were in the examining room waiting for the doctor she snuggled up against me and hid her face in my hand (nothing else to hide behind I guess).

The doc looked her over and said everything healed up fine.  She was so good while they took all those stitches out… sat very still.  She looked sooo miserable though. One thing they didn’t tell me when I picked her up two weeks ago – her microchip came out along with her leg – it was stuck to her scapula they said.  So I will have to get her a new one if I want her to be chipped.

Misty and I celebrated with some treats and by taking a walk together around the yard…

…and then she continued her celebration by going to sleep on my flannel.