Castiel’s First Surgery

Castiel underwent surgery at his local vet to remove the lump so that it could be tested to determine if it was benign or malignant. We remained hopeful…maybe we would get the entire lump and good margins and all would be well. We were hoping… and my husband was thinking this could happen but I knew that cancer sends out tendrils and I was worried. The fact that it had grown considerably in the last week was alarming. I had been reading everything I could on feline fibrosarcoma. I went nuts on Pubmed, I plowed through veterinary journals. But I was aware that all my Googling and reading wasn’t equal to a Veterinary degree and years of practice. I learned enough to ask some questions – enough to be scared.

Castiel did well in the surgery. Thankfully, he had no issues with the anesthesia and came out of it quickly. His surgical scar was enormous but the lump appeared to be gone.  We hoped it was gone.  Castiel spent the afternoon recovering at our vet’s office and came home that evening. She told us he might be groggy, that we shouldn’t let him jump or move around much, that he might not be hungry.  She put an Elizabethan cone on him. He fussed with the cone on the way home, plotting its removal.

When we arrived home, he flew out of the carrier like a bat out of hell and immediately shirked his way out of the collar and  gobbled down his sibling’s leftover supper. He  wasn’t interested in keeping still. We had to settle him down as he was making his suture bleed. We gently cleaned the suture and replaced his cloth cone. He sulked. He kept tripping over it when he walked and it made it hard to eat. We drove to the pet shop and bought an inflatable doughnut cone. He hated that one too. Back to the cloth cone.  He was still drugged so he wasn’t in pain — that happened at about 3 am. We gave him the pain medicine the vet prescribed  and he napped until breakfast time. Never one to miss a meal, he was up meowing as soon as the sun began to rise.

It took another three days to get the histopatholgy results.

I hate this cone too.

3 thoughts on “Castiel’s First Surgery”

  1. Owwwwwwch! Oh my gosh that incision looks worse than an amputation one if you ask me. Based on how he bounced back, that’s a really great sign he will handle amputation recovery like a champ!

  2. He has done amazingly well with the first incision. Didn’t slow him down much or detour his attempts to steal his sibling’s food. We hope and pray he will adapt to the next step. The ramps are in place.

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