Author: mkfitzgerald

Castiel is back to his usual hijinks…trying to steal his sibling’s food and currently begging for my husband’s steak. He’s Castiel just with three legs now. He’s finished all his medicine and seems to be doing well. We’ve been watching for signs of pain and we haven’t seen anything that raises our alarm, although we understand cats can hide pain. One of our biggest fears going into this was that he wouldn’t be like Castiel — that he might get depressed and shut down. Thankfully that has not been the case — and Castiel is nine so middle-aged, and he still seems to be adapting fine.

We’re expecting to have a consult with the oncologist tomorrow, so we will find out more then about whether radiation or radiation/chemo is recommended or whether we need to do anything but follow-up.  The consult was supposed to happen last week but the doctor didn’t call — other emergencies, I think.  I am expecting they will recommend radiation but we’ll wait and see. I think the fear is always that some some microscopic cells could have escaped. With good margins, I think it is unlikely but cancer can be sneaky. And the surgeon did mention to my husband that there was signs that the cancer was already trying to regrow where it is was removed from the first surgery (before the amputation).

On Wednesday, Castiel will get his sutures removed. It looks like it has been healing well. We’re dressing him in the onesie overnight so we can all sleep and so his one-year-old sister Clover doesn’t bathe his sutures or catch them if she decides to gets feisty.  But overall so far so good.

 

 

Good News! The doctor called with the pathology results this evening and we have clear margins — cancer-free margins. The surgeon says he may not need to have to radiation therapy, although the oncologist may still recommend it to get any potentially microscopic cells that might have escaped, but so far so good. We will have a follow-up consult with the oncologist tomorrow. Anyway, we are all a little more relaxed this evening.

Castiel continues to recover well. I  was up all night writing a report for the boss last night but then crawled into bed for a a couple of hours in the early morning hours. Castiel curled right up into my arms and the two of us snoozed together. He is doing well with his balance and walking and remains steadfastly food motivated.  We are trying to watch his weight so it will be easier for  him to get around. Tonight he is up napping on his favorite blue chair. He is still taking the Buprenex and Gabapentin but we’ll see how he does as the week goes on. The swelling is going down slowly. I think we will all sleep a little better tonight now that we are past that scary bit.

Apologies for the brief absence, I had to catch up on work obligations. Sadly, work places do not recognize cats as family members and provide appropriate leave.

Castiel is doing really well. After a rough night in which he doggedly tore off his collar several times during the night, we eventually decided that he would be wearing a onesie overnight. This has happily allowed us all to sleep. We gave up on sleeping in the recovery room with him because he was so unhappy not being around his siblings and in the usual upstairs bedrooom.   We carry him up the staircase — no more stairs for him until his stiches are out — and tuck him in with us. His siblings Clover and Aleksandr curl up on the bed also – Clover beside him and Aleksandr on the pillows. Clover has been giving him daily baths or at least bathing his uncovered spots anyway. We put easy ramps and steps around the bed and padded the whole area with extra pillows and blankets to make it easy for him to get down to his litter box. He has figured out the litter box and all seems well. Low boxes with a cut out front work well.

He has finished his anti-inflammatory medicine and we removed the Fentanyl patch yesterday, now he is on the Buprenex and Gabapentin. They seem to be controlling his pain. We’ve been feeding him lots of liquidy cat foods to help prevent constipation. Castiel just wants everything to be back to normal. He is walking around fairly well. We’re amazed he has figured things out so quickly. We’re still waiting on the pathology report. Fingers crossed we get clean margins. We will be looking into getting a radiation therapy consult probably at U.C. Davis as the only other place that does this that we know of is in Campbell, which is far enough away that we don’t really know where it is — somewhere past San Jose, I think. Castiel doesn’t do well in the car. He gets super scared. We don’t know if we will do radiation but we want to at least learn more about it. It’s horrendously expensive but if we need to do it, we’ll find a way.

Castiel and his siblings survived Halloween — all three hid under the bed together. They hate the doorbell and the children’s voices were all the horror they needed.  We have scaredy cats. Although, Castiel enjoyed pumpkin carving. He loves watching me clean out the pumpkins and  carve them, then he likes to sniff them and check them out. Facebook sent me a reminder of Castiel as a kitty checking out a pumpkin. Thank you everyone for your continued check-ins and comments, they are really helping us all through this process.

 

Last night we let Castiel out of the soft crate in the house to lie on the living room floor with me while I worked on the jigsaw puzzle. He was rolling around with his belly in the air all happy. Then the next second he was at the base of the staircase and a second after that he dashed up the stairs like a bat out of hell before we could even get off the floor.  Now we’re in our 50s but we’re not that slow.  He made it all the way upstairs and to our bed with us hollering after him.  He’s not supposed to be walking much and certainly no jumping, and absolutely no stairs. When we caught up to him, he was curled up on our bed in his usual spot looking very smug and content.  “Purr,” he said. We checked his sutures and all his legs over and over – each one of us examining him very closely to make sure he hadn’t ripped any sutures. We were terrified that he had gotten away from us. We had no idea he could move this quickly or even manage one stair nevermind an entire steep staircase. It sure as heck won’t be happening again in the next 14-17 days. I’m checking with the neighbors right now for a toddler blockade that we can place there — and we’re going to need to be much more careful about supervision outside the recovery room or soft crate. Our family thought he would just stay still after surgery – shut down – and never move again. This is not the case at all.

Thankfully, he is fine and he doesn’t seem any the worse for his big adventure, but he  did give us quite a scare. I gather he just wants everything back to normal. After all that effort, we figured we ought to accommodate him, so we moved the whole gang, us and his siblings, into the upstairs bedroom and we watched tv up there until bedtime. Castiel was very happy. All three cats nestled onto the bed and everyone was content.

We did take Castiel to the downstairs recovery room at bedtime. My husband slept with him on the mattress last night — there’s no furniture to jump on in that room so he can be safe and protected while his hoomans sleep. It’s 11 am and I just checked on the two of them. Castiel had an early breakfast (as he likes it) and he was able to use the box and he had a bowel movement so all systems are functioning normally. And now Castiel and my husband are back to sleep and are napping away the day. It’s kind of a grey, foggy day here so not a bad day to sleep in — and admittedly, it’s been a rough week on everybody.

 

Castiel had a good night. He slept cuddled next to me on a mattress on the floor of his recovery room. He was able to get up to go to the bathroom in his litter box – and while it was awkward (especially with so many drugs on board and the cone), he got the job done. At one point, he got the litter in his cone and stood staring at me – a look that said, “hooman, I require assistance.” There were a few face plants while he was learning to walk, which was frustrating for him and hard for me to watch but to his credit, he just got up and tried again.  His sister Clover tried to break into the recovery room at 1:30 am by doing summersaults against the door. She missed sleeping with her brother.  She will have to wait a little longer because we can’t have her licking the wound or playing rough with Castiel.

Castiel woke me at 6 am meowing. At first, I was scared he was having breakthrough pain but it turned out he was just hungry. I kept trying to pet him gently and he got frustrated with my lack of comprehension and walk-hopped over to his empty dish and stared at it as if to say, ” I go away for one night and you forget how this works!” I brought in breakfast and all was well again in the world. He ate all his food and used his box again. No poo yet but he is peeing.  I’ve been giving him wet cat food with lots of liquid and cat broths because he isn’t a big water drinker and  I don’t want him to get constipated. He had some tuna water at lunch too.

Castiel hung out with my husband Brian in his office all day, mostly napping in one of his beds or sprawling  in sunny spots. This is  normal for him even when he is not recovering from a major surgery. His younger siblings napped the day away too. He hasn’t fussed with his suture or the fentanyl patch so we take  the cone off when we can supervise him closely.  This has made him much happier. We’ve had some difficulty applying his cold compress or rather keeping it there. It is supposed to be applied four times a day for 10 minutes at a time. We wrap it in a towel and place it against him — and he hates it. He squirms. I don’t think it hurts or is uncomfortable, he just doesn’t get why we would want to place something cold against his skin. He thinks it’s a terrible idea. He has had a little swelling so we’re tying to get Castiel to accept the compress. He hasn’t had any reactions to his medicine — all good.  The fentanyl just makes him a bit sleepy.

The nurse from the vet hospital called to check up on him this morning. We told her he was alert and trying to walk about and that he was eating well and even took an interest in a marauding squirrel in his garden. He is an indoor only cat but he likes to watch squirrel as he scurries about the yard and hides peanuts in my planters. We have a long window so Castiel could keep an eye on squirrel from the mattress this morning. Castiel even managed to balance just right in his litter box tonight — it was a perfect job.

This evening, he is lounging in the family room with us and his siblings.  He is also back to his usual antics of trying to steal his sibling’s food. We are wise to this and thwart his attempts.  Everyone has been on good behavior, although his brother Aleksandr is a little nervous about Castiel’s new gait. His one-year-old sister Clover doesn’t care. She nuzzles right up to him.  We let Castiel out of the crate because he is not trying to walk too much. He sat on his favorite blue chair this evening and is now sprawled on the carpet waiting for me to resume my jigsaw puzzle attempts. I think I’ll go join him. We’re working on a Dr. Who puzzle.