Cat Surgery 2.0

Thursday night The Boy was visiting and he noticed that Joe's neck was swollen. He weirdly did not seem to be in any pain, and didn't even mind when we poked and pressed on it. He did not, however, want me to take a picture of it. I tried anyway:




















The Vansome was anxious to set up the Surgical Suite right away, and we debated for a while, finally deciding to at least wait until the end of the recorded episode of "Lie to Me" that we were watching. When we shaved the area, we realized that Joe's fur was making it look larger than it actually was, and the overlying skin was not taut, indicating that it would probably go down on it's own. Another indication that it might not need surgical intervention was the fact that it had not been there earlier in the day as Joe helped me knit. He sleeps on my feet when I am curled up on my knitting couch, which has the dual purpose of keeping my feet warm and making it more difficult for me to get up and do something else.



Friday afternoon, I could tell the swelling was larger, and the skin was tighter. When the Vansome got home from work, I gave him the go-ahead to prepare for surgery. The surgical suite was still set up from the night before, so I rounded up the Joekitty and took my place on the bathroom floor. We wrapped him in a towel because this was the first time he'd ever been through this experience and we weren't sure how well he'd take it. He took it well. He was calm, and only cried out when the scalpel finally broke all the way through. Even then he didn't try to get away.

It was definately infection that we drained from him. It certainly smelled like infection. I was worried we were going down the same road as with Gobs, but Joe had two distinct holes at the base of the swollen area, so I feel confident that it was just an infected bite. The cats have been fighting with something the past few nights, but we can't ever find anything when we go out to check on them.




















I took a post-surgery picture as he recovered on the Vansome's lap, but the area is too shadowed and the angle is bad. The Vansome was uncooperative with the posing of him. Something about wanting to let him rest in peace. Grandmother's bed served as his recovery room. He checked his shadow on the wall to see that the swelling was gone, then he snuggled into the comforter and went to sleep.



















At about 2 am I heard him crying at our bedroom door. He wanted to go in our room, but it has been a strict no-pet zone since we re-decorated and re-furnished last winter. I sat in the living room for a while, with him as far up on my chest as he could climb, and his head firmly tucked under my chin. I eventually needed to get back to sleep, so I checked to make sure he had been using the temporary litter box (he had) and then I crawled under the covers in Grandmother's bed and called him to join me. I slept for a few hours with him curled against me, my hand in mid-pet on his back. When I woke up in need of a Zantac, I went back to my own bed. He slept well into the morning, still down when I checked on him at 9:30.