Being as I'm not feeling so good I'm having my human mom write for me
On Wednesday, Aug 25th, Lucy and the kittens were all scheduled for their sterilization. The babies are just about 10 weeks old and weigh between 2.5 and 4 pounds. As expected we were a nervous wreck for our new little family as we dropped them off at 8am and couldn't pick them up till the following morning at 7:30am. Bright and early Thursday morning we were first in line to pick up our crew. Couldn't understand why they kept avoiding us and left us till last.
They came out with all the carriers except Lucy's. Babies were all being sent home but there had been a problem with Lucy. Briefly told that she had ripped out her sutures overnight and that they were stabilizing her for a return to surgery to see what happened. Spent most of the day making call after call to see what was going on. If it were not for all of you dear friends we would have been even more more upset than what we were.
Finally got thru and was told we could pick Lucy up at 3pm. When spaying they cut or separate the uterine horns and the uterine body
Once the cuts are made they are closed by what they call ligatures.
After her surgery all seemed well with Lucy. Staff is there very late at nite and return early in the am with a few hours of no staffing there. When they returned in the morning they found Lucy in a pile of blood and in critical condition. Took them 8 boxes of gauze pads to just soak up the blood pooled around her, put her on oxygen, IV fluids and a heating pad with a tech holding a pressure bandage on her incision.
Apparently the ligatures on the 2 ascending cuts were fine. However on the descending cut, the ligatures knots untied and she began bleeding in to her belly. When the pressure in her belly became too much, Lucy ripped out her sutures, inside and out, to let the blood drain out and she continued to bleed until they found her. Once stabilized, which took most of the day, they took her back into surgery. Again another incision to find out the problem, re-tie the ligatures, double check the other ones, and close her back up. I think they knew we would not let her stay there another night alone and unsupervised.
Back home on Thursday evening, our poor Lucy was an absolute mess. The anesthesia and pain meds for 2 days in a row really took it's toll. She was so dazed and almost confused, any slight noise just startled the daylights out of her. In between we were also monitoring the babies and trying to console our other pets who had no idea what was going and why they weren't allowed in certain rooms.
That night, Lucy was frantic and the only way to calm her was to hold her. She wanted nothing to do with a cage or an elizabethan collar. So I stayed up and held her for 4 hours straight just gently talking to her. She let her self relax. Managed to try the cage one more time for about 20 minutes, but went back to holding. So the entire night I just held her to my chest with her head tucked under my chin and let her sleep.
By Friday morning she was still groggy but very anxious about her kittens, we periodically took her in to see that they were ok and sleeping. By this time all the kittens had rallied around. Only one of the little females was a bit shocky at first, but holding her most of Wednesday night calmed her down. She was the only one that seemed to experience any pain but that seemed to subside by Thursday nite.
This post has taken me days to get completed..it's now Sunday morning and things are beginning to look up. Last night Lucy was just kind of blank and staring into space. We wrapped her tummy in a towel and sat her on the couch beside me and let the kittens out. 4 of the 5 just kind of zipped by as they were more intent on just running themselves ragged. The 5th kitten, was the little female who was initially kind of shocky. Her and Lucy just seemed to melt in to each other. Nuzzling and bathing her baby till she was soaked, Lucy seemed almost back to normal. Normal will take time as she is still run down from blood loss and tires very easily but at this time the things are finally looking up.
I'm tired but oh so much better
This is Lucy's belly today, 4 days after the double surgery. She is still quite swollen and bruised. She may not appear swollen but she had lost so much weight that it almost makes her look normal. Unfortunately it's all swelling on her tummy and inner legs
Here's the babies resting up
except for this guy who's feeding his fat little face again. He's the biggest at 4 pounds
Our sincerest thanks and gratitude to all our extended family on Bonanzle and the Pet Finders Forum for their many prayers and good wishes for Lucy's recovery. If it had not been for you all, we would have never survived ourselves much less Lucy. Such a great and loving bunch of people that it is our pleasure to call them part of our family. So many, many thanks and undying gratitude for those that sent donations to help with the mounting bills, mainly food bills now. Just this family is consuming 18 cans of Fancy Feast per day!....may God bless you all for helping raise this family of felines..these are your babies too! We love them all to death and have only wanted the best for them
On Lucy's behalf...many heartfelt kitty kisses and hugs to you all,
Mary & Russ
Lucy & her Babies
Sofy & Joey
Sammy, Jessy & Billy
