Misty Grey

I woke up this morning to the feel of little paws walking on my legs – somebody decided to curl up on the bed for a little while.  She snuggled right up against my hip and stayed there for awhile. <3

And later, excellent news! I got this email from the veterinarian:

“Good Morning.

“Hope Misty is recovering well. The pathology report is back this morning and the good news is this tumor has a low metastatic rate and since we did the amputation we don’t have to worry about it coming back anywhere. Call me if you have any questions and I’ll see you at the recheck.”

This is how Misty celebrated. Is there anything cuter than tiny faint little cat-snores?

I went to check on Misty a little while ago and give her a dose of her medicine. She was sleeping, snuggled cutely in her bed, still wearing the onesie, but I noticed that it had pulled down again. I figured I would take it off her for a little while since I am not going anywhere anyway. I said hi to her and scritched behind her ears and she started purring. Then rather than try to take it off her while she was lying down I offered her a treat so she would get up and come over to me – easier to take it off when she is sitting up. She lifted her head up and stretched her neck out to snarf up the treat without getting up. So I set another one further away and she started to get up and then sorta flopped back down without putting her left leg under her. For a second I was terrified something was wrong and she couldn’t.

Then I realized the onesie was pulled so far down that the neck of it had trapped her leg against her body so she literally couldn’t put the leg out in front of her. What a poor little goof! I am glad I only left her alone for a little while… that would’ve really sucked if it had been longer. I pulled the onesie down the rest of the way and then she still didn’t get up, I think she didn’t “get” that her leg had been freed, so I lifted her up and gently swung her leg forward and placed her little paw under her so she was standing on it. And she started purring again and came over and ate her treats. All’s well that ends well, I guess.

It worries me a bit that she didn’t try to get up immediately when I freed her leg – a sign that maybe her confidence has taken a bit of a hit.

But later she could not be deterred from getting up on the back of the couch. She was careful about it but she got up there:

Tripawds informs me that I need to post immediately or my my blog might be deleted. It it after 1 am and I created this blog after being inspired having finished reading all the other cat blogs.  I’ll post actual meaningful content tomorrow.  I’ll backdate using my Facebook posts from Oct 2013, when the tumor was first discovered, onward if this site allows me to backdate. For now the “about” page and photo should do for a start.

By the way, how do I get this page to stop saying it is about a dog? Misty is a cat.

This photo was in the morning when she was due for more meds. I felt a little bad  about the idea of waking her up, she was sleeping so cutely.  

She woke up a couple minutes later, I didn’t have to rouse her. Turns out she has been up once or twice in the night too, judging from the state of the litterboxes and her food dishes. I can’t believe she lies right on the scar already. I’d think that would hurt?? My friend who used to be a vet tech said that is a sign that they did well with her pain management.  The vet’s office all seemed almost amazed she was doing so well. I’m glad, I want her to be as happy and comfortable as possible. i’ve heard that it can go badly, than some animals really freak out.  I thought long and hard about how she would handle it before I made the decision. I was pretty sure she would just want to get back to doing all the things she likes to do, whatever it takes. And that is exactly what she’s doing, with lots of rest in between.

She can still wash her front left leg even without the right one to stand on. She’s kinda leaning against the wall a bit, she tried without it a couple times first, and couldn’t stay up long enough to get a good lick. She came home smelling like vet + litter box because she slept in the litter box there. I washed her with Waterless Bath where I could but I am glad she is cleaning up – she needed to do the finishing touches herself.

And she washed me too. <3

Misty is doing well. I let her go downstairs while I backed down ahead of her. She had no problems. I opened the sliding glass door and she sat by the screen and looked out for awhile. Then she slept on the couch on her favorite blanket for awhile.

This morning she jumped onto the sink before I could stop her and we did our faucet thing. I used treats to guide her back down on a stairway I made of bins. On the pain killers she might not know to stop doing things that are hurting her, so it’s my job to limit her activity.

She gets tired moving around the house, it is a lot more work for her front left leg. When she gets tired she just lies down for a bit. She seems to like to walk with the wall against her left side, and she sits against it too.

Here’s a photo of her on the windowsill enjoying a breeze from the outdoors – it was cool this morning. The scar is so big.  It’s hard to see in the photo but the stitches are dark blue. They’re kinda stiff and plastic-y like fishing line and slightly translucent.

She looks so goofy partially shaved.

I’m kinda marveling at how well she is doing. She doesn’t seem to miss the leg or be sad or even all that freaked out. As I’m writing this she’s curled up next to me on her “bed.”

She’s been sleeping a lot, even more than cats normally sleep, and sleeping hard when she does. Normally she is at my side the moment I wake up, or hit the snooze, or roll over, or take a deep breath, or think about getting up.  She wants breakfast and has been waiting for me by the time I am up. But this morning and all day today, it hasn’t seemed to wake her up when I am moving around the house – brushing my teeth or folding clothes or that sort of thing, when Jeff got up for work, etc. If I peek in on her and pet her she will wake up with a sleepy welcoming “brrrt?” and then nice hearty purrs and headbutts to the hand as long as I keep petting her, and then when I go away she goes right back to sleep. I don’t know if that’s the drugs or just her body working on healing her or both, but I know that sleep is good for her right now. I try not to interrupt too often.

The way she is recovering seems to be about typical for cats – the other blogs I’ve read tell similar stories. Still, it was hard to believe it would be the same for Misty until it happened. We will see how she does closer to when it’s time for the stitches to come out. I am trying to get her little onesie fitted right so it stays on and covers the stitches, new adjustments every time I take it off her. It still falls down when she is sleeping, she rolls all around in different positions. The neck of it is too wide, I’m going to try pinning it and once I’ve got it so that it stays I will sew it.

Hot compress for five minutes 2-3 times per day for the next few days. She seems to like it. After her five minutes I put it behind her so she could still snuggle up to it. Anything I can do to make her recovery less painful, the better!

 

She slept like a little rock for a few hours, then woke up, ran to the litter box, then ate, and tried to jump up on the sink. I got there before she launched herself thank goodness. I carefully lifted her up and she did her usual thing. Stubborn little creature that she is, she won’t even take a day off from her routine.

Glad she is using the litter box. Some cats I read about on other blogs didn’t go for like ten days. No problems here though.

The tshirt kept slipping down so I went and bought her some baby onesies, as some other Tripawds bloggers mentioned. Those seem to work slightly better but still slipping down to expose part if the scar. I’ll have to figure that out before the stitches start to get itchy.

Misty is home. She’s doing great. As I expected she just really wants to do all her normal things. She ate, hobbled around a bit, walked through the litterbox, and then we did a little petting and purring and treats, and then she went to bed. I think she will probably be there for awhile. She doesn’t seem to be in pain, the meds are doing their job.

They put a goofy little tshirt on her so she won’t have to wear one of those collars. She seems to be ok with that. I brought he collar home just in case we end up needing it. I remember when I had stitches, they got pretty itchy a few days before my 14 (or maybe 10?) days were up.

I would like to document her recovery. My vets were so worried about her age and/or her heart that I imagine there are other cats like her that people are on the fence about doing similar surgery, and maybe more information will help other people decide.

So this morning when I dropped Misty off they told me 12 not 11. Which means I should expect at least 1. Not noon. I am trying not to fret, but that’s hard.

1:24 pm: Misty came through surgery just fine, she is waking up now. They are going to keep her overnight, possibly two nights, but I am to call them in the morning and they will give me an update and a time when I can come visit her. I feel like I should be there so that at least she knows she still has her human, she has never been at the vet overnight and she might not know she is ever coming home.

Last week I had to drive to Ocala over an hour away to get her pain meds, there is a compounding pharmacy there that does veterinary meds – it was gabapentin (neurontin). I brought it in with her this morning.

4:30 pm: I miss my Misty. I am wishing I had been more pushy and bugged the vet to let me see her today. When they called me I was too worked up with nerves to think to ask. And then I was afraid to call back and ask because they said to call tomorrow to find out when I can see her. Tomorrow can’t come fast enough.

 Now that I am done with work I am going through the jobs web site again and submitting resumes for more jobs… that’ll keep me busy for awhile. Besides I need to find something before (if) she needs chemo… to be able to afford it.

They will biopsy the growth, now that it has been removed, and they also took her lymph node so we will find out if it metastasized.  If it did then we will give her time to heal and after that she might need chemo. I will talk with the oncologist again and come up with a plan after the results of the biopsy and lymph node come back.

Tomorrow is her surgery. This time I think it will actually happen, we’ve covered every base and she is healthy other than the cancer that this will remove and her mysterious heart arrhythmia. And they are using the most heart-gentle anesthesia that they can, and the oncologist has made pretty clear that chemo or radiation will not solve the problem, and that we are at the outside of the timeline when there would still be a point in this.

They said she might be out of surgery as early as 11 so I will expect 12 and try not to fret when I hear nothing by 11, since no surgery I’ve ever waited through ever got started and finished on the schedule I was told. I’m going to try and just work as usual all morning after I drop her off between 7:30/8, and listen to audio books or podcasts to try and make the time pass.

Even though she is grey and you’d think she should seem silver, she looks golden a lot of the time. She’s got her purple harness on, we just went for a walk outside.

Poor little girl had a hard day: fasted, visited the vet where she got sedated, her belly and leg shaved, and had an ECG and ultrasound, then rode home in a strange car with a stranger driving. She even has razor burn.

Her abdomen is fine, nothing funny going on there.  She is healthy.  I asked my vet if that and the oncologist’s information had changed her opinion – if it were her cat would she go forward with the amputation?  She said if it were her cat, no she wouldn’t.

I have gone ahead and scheduled the surgery anyway. I don’t feel that I have any choice, the alternatives have been explained to me very clearly and they are horrible.  Yes, I understand that Misty’s heart arrhythmia makes the surgery more dangerous, but there isn’t really much of a choice.  There are anesthetics that are very gentle on the heart, and we have made sure she is healthy, which she is – as healthy as you could ask for a cat to be.  Seeing Misty beside my poor little Alley as she wasted away last month, I realize this cat is bursting with health.  She will make it.

____________________

And lots of fun with the car, I want to tell this story here because of the kindness and exemplary service Misty and I received from Honda:

This morning my car had to be jump-started to get Misty to the vet. I brought her in, then stopped at the post office, the grocery store, and home to look up the info for the Honda dealer. All without turning it off, since I was afraid it would then not start again. I got to the dealer and they diagnosed it: alternator, which I JUST REPLACED in Jan 2013, was over-charging the battery. Having kept the car running, I was apparently allowing the alternator to over-charge it continuously to the point that it had started to swell and even leak. The technician told me that if I had kept driving it, it could have exploded.

The alternator is still under warranty, but the labor was only under warranty for 12 months, so I get the replacement part for free but have to pay for the labor. And a new, un-swelled un-leaky battery.

When I told them I had to go get Misty from the vet, they had a shuttle driver bring me all the way there – 40 miles! and then home. I am not happy about the cost of this newest little disaster in a long line of disasters lately, but I am very grateful to Honda for the way they have taken care of me. I guess if they didn’t drive me I’d have had to take a taxi, since no public transportation seems to run between Davenport (vet’s office) and Clermont (Honda). Or anywhere near my house, which is midway between them and ~20 miles from each location. Neither trip is too bad by itself, but they add up when put together.

She’s happy to be home, and doesn’t seem to care about the bare shaved belly.  🙂