Our teeny, tiny grey-haired domestic short hair cat, Aggie, who is 14 years old went to the vet on Monday for a scheduled dental cleaning. The process has been interesting!
The night before the procedure we had to remove all food access – that meant removing the other 2 cat’s food bowls too, much to their disgust. She was allowed water. In the morning I still had to feed the boys, so I sent Aggie down to the basement with Greg while I quickly took care of them. Aggie ran back up to the top step and screamed and yelled and cried to come out. When I opened the door to let her back up, Greg was sitting on the top step with her trying to calm her down and equally distraught.
We caught her quite easily and got her in the carrier and I took her to the clinic. The staff at the St. Louis Cat Clinic are so kind and compassionate and took her from me and told me the vet would call to explain the procedure. I hate leaving the vet clinic with no cat and those pesky tears pricked at the back of my eyes as I drove home.
About an hour later, Dr. Howard called me to explain what would happen. She would be under anesthetic for anywhere between 1-3 hours, and as she’s an older cat, they take great care to monitor her and if she goes into any kind of distress they will stop the procedure. Dr. Howard told me she’d call me as soon as she was finished with Aggie and let me know how things went and that she would be 2nd in line for the procedure.
I kept myself busy all day to try and keep my mind off of it. The boys barely realized she wasn’t home! At around 1pm I got a call from Dr. Howard saying that Aggie did great and that they didn’t have to do any extractions, but they did have to do a gingivectomy on one tooth where they cut back the gums that made a pocket over some nasty tarter. They also did an EKG to monitor her, which was all within normal limits, and they drew 3 lots of blood to test her calcium levels which were slightly elevated at her last visit in October. She told me that Aggie was awake and alert and I could collect her between 4-4.30pm.
The clinic is doing curbside drop off and pick up right now while trying to keep the inside as people free as possible to reduce the risk of Covid infection, so by the time I got there to collect her, there was already several cars in the lot waiting to be helped and I had to wait a while. The procedure is that when you arrive, you call the office and tell them you’re there to pick up your cat. They will go through all the at-home and post-surgery care with you and again discuss her health and then take your payment over the phone and then they will bring her outside to a collection point and give you any meds needed and then you can take her home. When I finally did get through to them the process went smoothly.
Finally I got my little Aggie back and she was very anxious to get home. She was still a little loopy from the anesthesia but had recovered enough not to hurt herself. She was starving! Ravenous in fact! She is typically not a very good eater, which is why she only weighs around 6 ½ lbs (less than 3kg), but that night she wanted all the food – like all the food in the house!! The vet said to feed her about a quarter of what she usually eats to make sure she didn’t vomit from the effects of the anesthesia, but Aggie was having none of that. I emptied half a can of food in her bowl and left the can out so that I could refill it when she was done. She bounced from her bowl to the can and back to her bowl again several times so I just emptied the rest of the food in there. She wolfed it down so I opened another can and she ate more than half of that too. We gave her some pain meds at bedtime and she slept on the bed with me all night and slept hard, but at least her tummy was full and she was home.
The day after surgery she was hurting and stayed under the bed all morning and came out about mid afternoon to eat. She didn’t sleep with us that night, which was strange and 2 days post surgery she was still under the bed all morning, but seems to be in less pain. The trauma of catching her to give her meds is worse than her pain, so I’m just giving her treats and catnip (which she inhales) and letting her come to me when she is ready. This is typical Aggie behaviour so I’m not worried. Hopefully she will perk up soon else I’ll have to send Sylvester under the bed to flush her out.
Feel better soon, my little Aggie-poo! There are leaves to watch, squirrels to glare at, brothers to hiss at and laps to sit on!
Tag: St. Louis Cat Clinic
Sylvester and the Vet
It’s funny, but not really funny (but actually hilarious) when you see a cat recovering from the side effects of having been under anesthesia.
I took Sylvester, our 10-year-old tuxedo cat, to his vet at the St. Louis Cat Clinic to have his teeth cleaned. I had clear instructions not to let him eat anything after 10pm the previous night and that I could drop him off between 8am and 8.30am the next morning.
We nonchalantly went about our business in the morning ignoring his pitiful wails and arrogant mischief-making leading up to his normal breakfast time. That time came and went and that caused the other 2 cats to become antsy about no food. Suffice it to say I was waiting outside the vets office at 8.02am with a very “hangry” Sylvester.
A little later that morning I got a call from the vet to tell me about the procedure and to tell me that he was close enough to his annual visit and would I like them to take care of the annual shots, exam, blood work and urinalysis too. ANYTHING to not have to catch him again and get him in the carrier, so YES, do it all! She then said “well, he’s a little angry right now so I’m going to wait until he’s a bit sleepy before I look in his mouth because I don’t want to get bitten!”
Anyone who knows Sylvester knows that he is the friendliest, most social, charming, playful cat there is, so when the vet tells you “he’s angry” it’s a bit of an embarrassing surprise. I told her he’s not really angry, he’s hungry! She said she had 2 dental’s that day and he will be the 2nd one and she’ll call me when he’s starting to wake up and when she has all the blood results.
So, I went about my day. Aggie and Bear distanced themselves from each other, as usual and had a nice long nap.
Around 3pm I got the call from the vet saying that Sylvester was just starting to wake up and was very drowsy but doing very well. He didn’t have any teeth troubles, so just a cleaning, polishing and scaling was done. All his blood work came back purrfectly, as did the urinalysis results. His weight is also purrfect! Yay, we’ve been working on that for a couple of years. There was one little thing that happened under anesthetic and that was that he developed a heart murmur. It only occurred when they gave him the IV fluids and as soon as they stopped the fluids, the murmur disappeared. She wants to see him in a couple of months to check on his weight and listen to his heart again. I could collect him at 5pm.
At 5pm I was outside the vet’s office waiting for the little darling. They have very strict rules about dropping off and collecting animals, so we conducted all business over the phone and then they brought him out to me. He was furious! Lock, stock and two smoking barrels furious!
I got him home and opened the carrier door and a very drunk black cat shot out of it, flopping around and bouncing off walls. First thing he did was make a bullseye to the food bowls. There was nothing in them, but he fell all over the bowls knocking them all over the place, so I decided to feed him a small amount of food to tide him over! Ha! Vet suggested that I give him about a third of a can of wet food in case he vomits from the anesthetic, so I gave him the food. He could barely stand upright to eat it and fell all over the place with his head in the bowl but inhaled the food and looked for more. I waited a while and gave him some more. Same thing. He lumbered from one room to the next licking and eating everything. He ended up eating 2 full cans of food and was still hungry. He constantly jumped up onto the counter to see what food Aggie had but we put her food away. He had zero sense of balance and threw himself off the counter landing with a splat each time on the floor. I just couldn’t calm him down for a second. This went on for about 4-5 hours! Next time I’ll board him overnight at the vet.
In the meantime, Aggie was horrified with me for bringing Sylvester back. She hissed, growled, yelled, wailed and was a nightmare. Bear only added to her woes. Neither Bear not Aggie ate any dinner. Aggie was making a point of her fury and Bear was a little scared of her so wouldn’t go into the kitchen. I think Sylvester freaked them both out too with his behaviour, as this was totally out of character for him.
Bedtime finally arrived and usually we’re surrounded by cats on the bed, but none of them joined us. I suspect that Sylvester injured his back hip or leg from all the clumsy jumping he did because he now has a bit of a limp. I will be watching that and if it doesn’t improve, back he goes!
This morning is “the morning after” and it was still a bit bumpy as Aggie was still refusing to eat and Bear appeared for a quick snack, so Sylvester ate his and Bear’s food. Sylvester is still limping but not as much as last night. I was able to keep him quiet today and there hasn’t been any jumping. The anesthesia has worn off and his eye size has returned to normal. He is a bit off balance from the limping though.
Aggie settled down around lunch time. I finally had my purry little girl back and she let me stroke her again. She jumped up on the back of the couch and went to sleep. Bear has been sleeping in the closet all day which is mostly normal for him. Sylvester has joined me in the spare room to supervise my activities.
That was quite a 24 hours! We’ve had all 3 cats dealing with anesthesia at some stage and none of them had a reaction anything like Sylvester. I followed him around like a crazy person last night and yet he still managed to do too much jumping. Hopefully 24 hours of having a quiet day of napping will fix him right up. I’m just glad that Aggie stopped yelling at me.