My Tickers

Friday, April 17, 2009

Waiting when things go wrong....

I'm sure everyone would agree with me here.... IT SUCKS!

Here's our story:

Day before yesterday (Wednesday night) we took our baby kitty Merlin in for his pre-op check up. He's almost a year old and a boy so it's time for him to get "fixed". He's been walking around here howling away (you can even hear the girl kitties outdoors howling back in response...CAN YOU IMAGINE THE FRUSTRATION???) he hasn't started spraying (AMAZING I KNOW) but I was sure it would start up at some point. So that was the plan, get him "fixed". The vet gave him an ok bill of health, he's had all the proper shots so he was cleared for surgery as early as the next day.

Thursday morning we get up and drive him to the vet for what is supposed to be a simply neutering. Surgery would be around 11:00 am and they would call us when he was done and they would let us know at that time when we could pick him up. Sent my son off to school with dreams of picking up his kitty after school sometime. Early in the afternoon the vet calls, she says there had been a minor complication. Apparently there was more bleeding than is usual in his right testicle but she had managed to stop the bleeding and he was resting as comfortably as could be expected. They had him on some pain meds and he would be ready to be picked up and come home anytime after 4pm. She said there was some oozing at the site of the cut but it was ok and he would be fine. 3:30pm rolls around, we're getting ready to go pick up Merlin when my cell phone rings, caller ID shows it's the vets office. Now anyone who has had to wait for things and wait after someone they loved had surgery knows that gut wretching feeling, that tightness and uncomfortable "I just know this is bad news" feeling when you see that number on the phone.....this was the case with me. I just knew it wasn't going to be good news....and I was right. Apparently as the vet was getting ready to go home for the day she decided to go back and check on Merlin one more time, he was laying in the cage and bleeding pretty badly, his blanket he was laying on was red and he looked lethargic. She check his surgical area to see it bleeding pretty badly so she had to do emergency surgery. She had to knock him out again, go back into the right testicle and try to find the source of the blood. She explained about how when you do a neuter surgery you have to cut a lot of blood vessels and it was possible that one of the knots had slipped or maybe Merlin had some kind of clotting disorder that made it hard for him to clot (I doubt this was the case since his left testicle was fine and wouldn't a clotting disorder effect BOTH testicles??) She said she felt she had the bleeding under control, but she wanted to keep Merlin overnight just to be safe. They were giving him IV antibiotics since they had to open him up twice and that gave him a greater risk of infection, they will be sending him home with antibiotics and pain meds as well. She said they would call if anything else happened and they will call in the morning to let us know how he faired through the night.

So last night before bed I called them up just to see how he was doing. They said he had eatten some food and was doing better. He's resting and being nice and quiet and the bleeding appeared to be under control, they would continue to watch him overnight and call me in the morning to let me know if he made it through the night without anymore bleeding issues.

So that's where we're at, we're sitting here waiting for the phone to ring, waiting for them to call and tell us what is up and how our baby is doing. We're hoping he's ok and that he had a nice peaceful evening resting at the vets, doped out on pain meds and not bleeding. I'll let you know when we know more.

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