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With Cat laid up, it wasn’t till Monday evening that she started knitting gifts to my brothers and nieces. She, however, went nearly nonstop for a day and a half cranking out four beautiful, matching scarves.
Doesn’t she look so proud! She did an amazing job.
On Monday we went back to Dr. Zalonis to change Cat’s bandage and acquire her humungous, bionic boot. It’s pretty cool! It really keeps her foot straight and helps a lot with the pain, relatively of course, since she is just grinning and bearing it without pain medicine.
I’ve been keeping good care of her making sure that she is staying hydrated and keeping her as comfortable as possible – keeping her cozy, offering my hand to squeeze when the pain gets too much, etc.
Since the surgery on Friday the love of my life hasn’t been able to hold anything down. We tried crackers, pedialyte, prescription medicine we had around from a former stomach ailment to no avail.
So we took this lovely specimen to the emergency room after several conversations with her podiatrist:
As an aside, I always think my Kitten Cat looks beautiful and dehydrated in a hospital gown is no exception. With that said, the woman was hurting. Cat’s lips were cracked and swollen, she looked tired, and her skin was clammy.
After not being able to eat or keep liquids down since Thursday after supper, you can understand that she wasn’t feeling great.
Cat and I spent another night at the emergency room when we were dating for her back and thought that this would be a romantic return to the ER if she didn’t feel so bad!
There was a lot of time for such random thoughts as we waited to get a hospital room. They put an IV into her along with a shot of medicine for her sickness and another shot for her foot pain from the bunion surgery. She looked better almost immediately! How excited was I to get my old Kitty Cat back?
Dr. Seitzinger was worried that there might be something wrong with Cat’s gallbladder so we had an ultrasound and all was well there. After Cat started feeling better, we joked about what terrible luck we would have if she had surgery on Friday for a bunion and on Saturday for her gallbladder.
With a little, alright a lot, of coaxing I am alternating glasses of pedialyte and water to get some electrolytes in her to deal with the remaining dehydration. She has been able to hold down the oral pain and stomach medicine that we were originally prescribed by Dr. Zalonis, which is good news.
Cat was able to sleep a lot better last night and sleeping soundly as we speak.
Cat’s bunion, aka the bunny, was fixed this morning thanks to Dr. Zalonis. A bunion forms because of enlarged tissue or bone between the big toe and the rest of the foot. So while the rest of the toes are nice and straight the big toe starts going crooked.
The surgery itself doesn’t take long, forty minutes, but there is always a wait at the doctors office and she had to remain in a nurse’s care for a half hour after surgery to make sure that she was coming out of anesthesia fine. After surgery, this is what her foot looks like:
Cat had some anesthesia but didn’t go under all the way. She hasn’t said anything really crazy coming out of it except that she loves me! We got her in bed, elevated her foot, got her some food and pain medicine. She’s sleeping now and crossing my fingers that she will stay asleep till 5pm when she can take more pain medicine and I will have dinner for her.
In the meantime, I have been trying to keep the house. As Cat said yesterday, I am first and last line of defense in the Donahower household today. I’ve cleaned the bathroom and kitchen and taken out the trash. Just took a break and ate the rest of the oreos! Ssshh.
Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers, Cat is recovering nicely and we’re taking Andy Surra’s advice and “staying ahead of the pain.”
Cat needed some blood work done today in preparation for her surgery to remove her bunion, aka the bunny, and got into the Christmas spirit with some red and green tape:
