Day One Post-Op

And he's home! Pretty groggy, shaved, a little annoyed, but all in one piece (well minus a small one) and home where he belongs!

I called the vet this morning after getting in to work just to see what his ETA might be. I was told that Max was "all right" though he had chewed one of his stitches off. Not a shock. Was also told that he even managed to pull a cone off of his head. Overall, however, he was a model patient, very sweet, cuddly and lovey. He wasn't ready yet, so they said they would call us when he was.

Finally after about noon was told he was ready whenever we could come and get him. So, I finished up what I could at work and told my boss I needed to leave a bit early to take the furry beast home. Got there and was sent into one of the little rooms to wait for the vet (why did I leave the knitting in the car???). He came in and explained the surgery; apparently I misunderstood the first doc, or he didn't have the procedure quite correct, but there is no disc. Instead, the doc finished sawing off the piece of bone, cleaned it up, and smoothed it out. He offered the piece of bone to us, so we took it home (yeah...we're kind of sick that way)...

There is no longer a bone that rests in the socket, but the muscles and ligaments are all still attached to the femur. Since there is no mending bone like a typical break, it's just mostly healing from the surgery itself. So, after paying the 1,200 vet bill (thank you again to all who donated, you ROCK!) and getting the aftercare instructions we bundled the cat into the car and headed home.

We let him out of his carrier and let him explore. It didn't take long for him to start licking at his stitches again so out came Purl's cone. It fit! It doesn't make Max too happy, but it makes us feel better. And, so far, he hasn't been able to pull this one off. So we've taken a few pictures of the poor baby...all of his missing fur...

And this one is just the cone, he's laying on the "owie side" and looking very annoyed at the indignity of the cone...

And a pretty grainy video of how well he's getting around...

The red blanket you see on the floor at the end of the video was put there especially for Max. R picked up a nice, large heating pad for Max to curl up on, put a soft blankit on top of it and...so far he's completely ignoring it. But then he has only laid down once so far and only for a few minutes.

I will update more tomorrow. Luckily my boss is letting me work from home, so at least for Max's first three days of recovery he will not be alone.