On the mend

Two surgeries in three weeks, and two good outcomes. I couldn't be more pleased with Dr. Davis' work--she took good care of both cats in the run-up to surgery, and did a great job in the actual surgery. Both Izzy and Cleo were not in the best of health before surgery--Izzy because of chronic ear infections, and Cleo suddenly became incapable of feeding herself, and went from mesomorph to wasting. So we had to build both of them up for surgery, while at the same time, not putting off the surgery so long that we missed the best window for each kitty.

Anyway, still crazy busy with second shift cat care + crunch time at the day job, but it's definitely starting to wind down. Cleo's feeding herself now, and Izzy's ear isn't oozing nearly the amount of crud it was in the beginning. There is the problem of getting antibiotics down non-compliant patients, but it's not as bad as syringe-feeding someone who doesn't want it.

So there's light at the end of the tunnel. And there's good news, too--in addition to inferring that the teeth and stomatitis (inflamed mouth) was Cleo's sole obstacle to eating because of the beeline she made for the food on returning home, as groggy from the anesthesia as she still was, the biopsy seems to back it up. No cancer--yay! The patho report said "severe stomatitis", which the steroid injections and the removal of her teeth should fix, and we'll keep an eye on for recurrence. In the meantime, the little feral rescue from my last weeks at Microsoft looks better than she has in a while. No more wheezing that you can hear from the next room, no more weepy eyes, and she's chowing down like there's no tomorrow.

As always, I'm a day late and a dollar short on getting all my deadlines caught up with. But really, I couldn't be happier with Cleo's and Izzy's outcomes, and if it took sublimating every thing else for a month to play second shift intensive care cat nurse, I don't begrudge it.