THE CANCER SAGA CONTINUES

New Year's Eve and New Year's Day were as depressing as Christmas. I was nervous over the different possible outcomes of the surgery; I hoped for the best but I was expecting the worst. Artie, on the other hand, was extremely angry about how this played out; the possibility of losing Annie so soon after losing Buddy was very distressing. Both of us were upset that by trying to avoid any surgery Annie now had to go through not one but two operations.

Friday, January 4, 2013, the day of the follow-up surgery arrived. Annie's appointment was for 7:30 AM. Her surgery was scheduled for morning. I received a call during the afternoon from Dr. Cherrone, the surgeon who performed the operation. She sounded very upbeat as she reported Annie went through the surgery successfully and was recovering nicely, however, we would have to wait for the biopsy results to determine if the margins were clean and whether or not we had to go forward with radiation therapy.

Both Artie and I were emotionally totaled, counting the hours until Annie could come home. 6 PM Saturday we were at VERG waiting to collect Annie, get post-op instructions and leave for what we hoped would be an uneventful evening at home. When Annie entered the exam room, we were stunned to see her acting completely normal. The only evidence of surgery was the big bandage wrapping her entire midsection. She was alert, thrilled to see us and busily exploring the room, smelling the floor and furniture and, as always, begging for attention from the Veterinary Technician and us.

Annie was on medicine and we needed to keep the bandages on for awhile until we were sure any residual bleeding or oozing from the wound stopped. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to pick up Frankenweenie but that is exactly what Annie looked like with her long scar closed by staples! The pictures below were taken about two weeks after the surgery. A significant amount of swelling at the surgical site had already gone down and her hair was starting to grow back.

My next post will continue with our post-surgery experiences.

Annie resting prior to our daily exam of her sutures.

The second surgery incision was twice the length of the first surgery.

Close-up of staples; you can see swelling especially at both ends of the incision.

Another close-up of Annie's surgery.

CRISES UPDATE

It's been a long time since my last post. It was not my intent to allow so much time to lapse between posts. The one-two punch of Annie's surgeries and the cat's FIV+ diagnosis were one medical issue too many to deal with at once. Artie and I both are still in recovery mode; so are Annie and the cat but I believe the furry members of this family are faring better than the human ones.

The cat's bite wound is healing nicely; he has finished his course of antibiotics.  One round of flea medicine needs to be administered in a few weeks. On to the worms, of course, we are dealing with two different kinds. One is handled by a pill but the other required two syringe doses of some yellow medication administered 14 days apart. We did get the first dosage into him over a two-day period by adding it to his meals. Better in the food than to further stress out an FIV+ feline. Next week we administer the second dose.

He didn't like the litter we were using so he wet a couple of rags we gave him to sleep on. He seems to prefer newspaper. For now, we are using old newspapers in the litter box and he's content to use them.

The front hallway where he's been hanging out is starting to lose its appeal. For the first time today, he ventured into my apartment to explore, the sight of Annie sending him scurrying back to the hallway and the perceived safety of the hallway stairs.

Annie is slowly recovering. Her ongoing health crisis will take a few posts and I will be documenting her story in the coming days.