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Things had been going pretty well but we had a little setback last night. All of a sudden I noticed one of his front paws was all swollen and immediately jumped to the worst- another tumor (considering thats how this last one started). Thank goodness we have an amazing vet that took us after closing time real quick last night. It turned out to be nothing, just some fluid build up from the way he had been sleeping with his t-shirt on!

I can’t believe how well we have been doing with no pain meds! He is totally fine, other than the stitches being SUPER ITCHY! They used dissolvable stitches which are supposed to last two weeks yet someone has many that are already gone… he never has more than 30 seconds between shirt/onesie changes but he is a freaking quick little bugger! Vet said all is ok because he has another layer of embedded stitches underneath. Said incision looks like it is healing well.

Our biggest issue has been using the bathroom. Every single time he pees he requires a total wash cloth bath because he sits on the pee pee pad and just lets it got… for like 3 minutes! It is amazing how much he can hold. For the first time today he hopped into his litter-box, STOOD, and peed! Then ‘ran’ around the room to get up back up on the couch to ‘his spot.’ He has been playing us yesterday and today and made us think he had regressed… what a trickster!

Just in case anyone needs a good laugh today… Decided that because he has been doing so well that it was ok to leave for just a few minutes (of course I had the security camera on so that I could check in on him as often as needed), starting to go a little stir crazy! Had to run to the vet to drop off some things they lent us when he peed all over his stuff last visit and had to talk to them about a stool softener because it had been 4 days since pooping! Went to the vet and they suggested Miralax which thankfully didnt mean me having buy even more prescriptions! After we were done I checked the camera and he was nice and calm so I went to a quick lunch with my mom. Got back to the house and went to go get him out of his kitty jail cell that he despises and OMG… POOP EVERYWHERE!!!!!!! And of course he has a onesie on because he is trying to rip the stitches out at every chance he gets (cone not an option it infuriates him) and the t-shirt he gets his one back leg stuck in! I am sure you can all figure out how fun that was to clean him up… literally had to CUT the onesie off him, it was that bad! He was either so mad at us for leaving, scared that he was left alone for the first time, or it finally just came out… whatever the reason, I guess I didnt need to go get that miralax

On a side note, I finally was able to get a video of his attempt at walking. I know it is not great but it has improved tremendously, just the fact that he has some balance and isn’t needing my assistance to hold or help his enormous rear end up! He certainly tells us exactly where he wants to go.  I feel like I have a baby that needs ‘tummy time’ on the floor. He prefers spending most of the time on the couch which is soft and comfy and he can certainly get up and move himself around on there but I do try and get him down on the carpet a lot which is a hard surface. The blankets on the floor that you see in pictures have no cushion to them. As soon as I put him on the floor he tries to hop right back over to the couch or the air mattress (been sleeping downstairs with him) and jump on them, which doesn’t work! Oh and today is our last day of pain meds… fingers crossed!

Everyone slept well again last night! Today was an up and down day. For the most part it was pretty good but there were times where he was clearly in some kind of distress. We do not think it had anything to do with being in pain because scooting around the house was no issue, instead we are thinking it was gas or something like that! It was sad though because all of sudden he would start to moan, fart (lovely right!), and then relax. Thankfully this was only like 20 mins in the morning and then again in the afternoon.

I had a baby shower to go to this afternoon and my mom was nice enough to watch him for those few hours. Our biggest issue has been him peeing. The last two days we had to bring him to the vet to have them press his bladder and force him to pee, but with it being a Saturday and them closing at 130 today we knew that was not an option. The vet kept saying eventually he would have to go or it would start dripping out whether he wanted it to or not! We knew that the issue was that he didn’t want to go unless it was in the litter box and he felt like he couldn’t make that happen. Well, we got to about 9pm tonight and still nothing but he was very agitated. He has shown NO interest in the litter box at all which we have heard is normal but tonight he actually tried to scoot over to it and get in. I tried to help and then he wanted nothing to do with it. Not really knowing what to do but knowing he needed to go I dumped some of his litter onto a pee-pee pad and put it in front of him on the floor. After about 20 minutes he scooted himself over to the pad and started using his front paws to dig in it, propped himself up to sit and went! Granted NONE of it made it to the pad, at least he (and I) figured it out and I am sure he felt 100% better! Never in my life did I think I would care so much about the bowel movements of the cat or be totally ok with him peeing wherever he wanted lol.

Besides that, he has become very aware of the stitches today and it has been an all day job to keep him away from them… oh, and he HATES the cone- like body flailing, angry meowing, head shaking until its gone HATES IT! Before surgery I had picked up some baby onesies but fun fact… the 22 pound cat does not fit in 12 months, 18 months, or the 24 month ones that I got. Luckily my nephew is over often and I had some of his clothes around… go figure, his size 5/6 tank top was the one that did the trick. Was able to get it on and put a few stitches in it to get it on him the right way! Was just worried about him getting to the stitches during the night tonight so hopefully this works! I had also ordered a cheap security camera off amazon ($28) and I set that up so that I could spy on him even when I couldn’t be in the room just to make sure he was ok! Works great!

Last night was terrible and there is nothing that can possibly prepare you for what to expect hours after surgery, today was better. My boy was finally able to sleep peacefully without the moaning. Turns out he is quite good at being able to tell me what he wants and what he really wanted was to be up on his spot, on his blanket, on the couch. It took some barricading to make sure he couldn’t fall but it is what made him comfortable. So much for our well thought out recovery tent…wasn’t even used for a second! Oh well, we thought we were prepared but we had NO idea! He slept a good amount today and ate A LOT, which I totally expected. The moaning only came back around pain med time. Our only issue today was that while he pooped this morning, he refused to pee! Given his prior history of blockage this was a concern for us and our vet. We waited all day and then at around 4pm the vet said to come and just have him checked real quick. The were able to expel his bladder with no issue and figure he just didn’t know how to pee at home. This may be our new norm for the next few days. Although it was nice to have the vet give him a once over and say things look pretty good given where we are at! Fingers crossed for some sleep tonight. I am tired!