Anabel and Sally – The Fix is in!

As I mentioned last week, my kittens had their kitten making equipment “fixed”. Even though it was scary to subject my little loves to surgical procedures, I am very glad that we did it.  All of us are going to be happier living without the things that come along with cat hormones.

Drop off was between 7-7:30am. The vet gave me strict instructions that they weren’t to have any food after midnight.  Since these kittens are used to a middle-of-the-night snack, they were very ready for breakfast, which they weren’t going to get either. I was glad to drop them off right at 7:00 so that I could escape my guilt of their being hungry.

The doc called later that morning to let me know that they were both out of surgery, awake, and playful. He also let me know that Anabel’s equipment had been nearly ready to go into business, so I think we got this taken care of just in time!

When I picked them up, I got a whole long list of instructions: use this recycled paper litter, pain meds for Anabel every 12 hours, wait an hour after getting home before feeding, only feed them half the usual amount then wait another hour, have them wear the cone anytime that they aren’t going to be supervised, minimize jumping and rough play (ok…um, is that possible?).

They were quiet in the car the whole way home.  When I opened the carrier, they took a while to make their exit.  It reminded me of the first time that I brought them home.  Sally came out first of course, he had to say “hello” and check out the new litter box situation.  Eventually Anabel joined us and we all hung out in the sunroom for a while.

Anabel was very in to the new litter. I kept hoping someone was going to take care of business, but they just wanted to play with it. Part of the interest was that we also switched from our fancy top-loading litter boxes to a regular litter pan to minimize jumping. The low-sided pan with this new stuff in it was a playground.

After everyone settled in a bit, I put out their breakfast (so it was 2pm, whatever).  It was clear that Sally was feeling his procedure.  They slept under the futon in the office rather than in the bed with us that night.  But by the next morning Sally was back to his friendly, lovey self.

Ok, did I tell you about having them wear their cones?  Oh yeah, that went well.  And by well, I mean not well at all.

The morning of day two post-op: Anabel wants to lick her incision.  Because it’s itchy. So, I put the cone on her like I’m supposed to.  Then she gets all riled up. Then Sally starts teasing her.  So, he gets the cone too.  I let Mr. Man know what’s going on and I’m off to the gym.  When I come home, Mr. Man is not happy. Apparently, they went even more nuts; there was crashing and thrashing and freaking out.  So much for that.

Also, about the not jumping thing.  Total fail.  They were back up in the window over the fireplace and everywhere else they wanted to go the very next day.

Despite our poor observance to the doc’s instructions, everyone is healing nicely, and we are pretty much back to our usual program now.  Anabel’s incision is pretty healed up, now we just have to wait to see how long it takes for her tummy fur to grow back.