Feline Friday: Successful Surgery!

Blogging friends, please forgive the lateness of this post! I've been totally distracted with Lily's recuperation and care and completely forgot to post this update.

Long story short: The surgery to remove Lily's anal glands was successful, and there was no sign of cancer! Hooray! After an overnight at the clinic where Lily has been labeled a "difficult cat" (read: impossible to handle...), she's now back home recuperating. I anticipate that it will be several days before she's completely back to normal but she's doing very well, considering the delicate surgery area.

Our surgery story:

She had to fast after 7pm Tuesday night and did surprisingly well with food restriction...until about 4:30 in the morning when she was starving like there was no tomorrow. I dropped her off at the clinic shortly before 8am and was such a blubbering mess that I could barely sign the paperwork in the parking lot.

 After she cleared the bloodwork test, her surgery was done that morning. I was instructed to call after 1:30pm to see how things went.  I was overjoyed to get the report that all had gone well and there was no sign of any tumors, as the emergency vet had feared. My clinic vets had not been concerned about that possibility but once the seed had been planted in my mind, it was hard to ignore.

After a quiet evening without Lily, I picked her up Thursday afternoon. The staff reported she had not been too happy to be there, which of course was no surprise given her bad behavior during regular appointments. She was none too happy to see me either! She growled and swiped the whole way home. Poor stressed-out girl.

  

When we arrived home, she ran out of her carrier and straight to her food bowl, which I took to be a good sign. Meanwhile, I read the take-home information which indicated she'd need an e-collar if she started licking the surgical area. I was hoping she would refrain, but of course that lasted about 5 minutes. 

So off I ran to PetSmart where I purchased this lovely inflatable donut which Bailey says looks like a travel pillow. If I'm watching her, she can go without it but otherwise she needs to wear it for 4-5 days. Licking the surgery area seems to be her main goal in life right now, and that's probably understandable.

 

I had barely inflated the donut when I noticed she was scooting. That can't be good, I thought, given that she was scooting directly on the surgery site. When I spoke to the vet, he realized they'd forgotten to send me home with her pain medication. Luckily I had a few doses left from our recent visit to the ER and have since picked up a large supply which will last us a few days. But even with the pain medication, she is still scooting. The best I can do is try to distract her if I see it happening. 

Scooting seems to be her second main goal in life right now.

My main goal in life right now is is to prevent it. So I was awake with her off and on throughout the night, trying to prevent scooting. At 5am, I gave up on that and fell asleep on the couch. And finally, she today she's relaxed enough to actually close her eyes and rest. When she's sleeping, she's not scooting. :)

Thankgfully, she has no mobilility issues and is eating normally. She's very excited because she gets to have ONLY CANNED FOOD with pumpkin for the next 10 days. 

 I'm not going to post a picture of her poor little bottom as it's just too painful for even me to look at, but I do need to keep a close eye on it. I sent over some photos today and the vet seems to think it looks good. It's just going to take some time for it to feel better. The vet says we just need to keep her comfortable for a good 3 days or so in order for the area to start healing, then she can lick and scoot as much as she wants. :)

The vet told me that her glands were full of "petrified" liquid. For some reason, the liquid in her anal glands doesn't stay liquid -- it hardens and cannot be expressed in the normal way. That situation must have been very uncomfortable for Lily, so I'm very hopeful that once she recovers, she'll have a much improved quality of life...as will her meowy!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!
jp and Lily