I was just finishing up my week-long vacation this week. As you know, we just got back from being out of town, and I was trying to get some things done around the house before having to go back to work in Hendersonville on Monday.
It was time for us to take Otto's stitches out from when he had his cyst removed. Actually, it was over time. They were only supposed to be in there two weeks, and it had been 18 days. I made the appointment for 2:00 on Thursday, and off we went. Only now we had Wanda in tow because of some issues she's been having with unproductive coughing. We were worried she might have some kind of nodule on her throat, since she didn't seem to be producing any hairballs, even with the aid of hairball medicine.
So we load all thirty pounds of them into the car, yowling up a storm. This is the way it goes: they yowl nonstop until we get to the vet, and then they don't make a peep the whole way home.
Got them to Dr. McKisson, and Otto went first. Otto cringed and shook his head as Dr. McKisson was taking out his stitches. When he was done, they were kind of scabby, which I suppose is normal, but I didn't have a good feeling about it. I asked him if there was much of a chance of Otto reopening it. He said probably not. There may be some bleeding once the scabs come off, but that should be about it.
Wanda was another story. As per usual, Wanda put on her best Harpy-Ninja-Cat-On-Steroids impersonation, which she really has perfected by now. She lurched. She rabbit-kicked. She lashed out and bit and generally made it very difficult for the vet to take a peek beyond her gnashing incisors. After Wanda was nice enough to carve me a new Life Line on my palm, we pulled out a towel and wrapped her in it like a snarling teeth-and-beans burrito. That slowed her down some. Long story short, he couldn't find a thing wrong with her, but guessing that it was probably some kind of inflammation in her throat, gave her a prednisone shot. We just had to hope that the additional dose of "'Roid Rage" didn't kick in until after we left the vet.
As expected, Otto and Wanda were perfect quiet little angels going home. They napped on each other, each taking turns resting their head on the other. We got home, let them out, and life went back to normal.
For about thirty minutes. (Yep, I'd say that's average for things staying normal in our house.) That's about how long it took for our extremely active almost-twelve-year-old-Siamese to open his incision site back up again. We have no idea how he did it--could have been from scratching, jumping, or just moving funny with all his strong, rippling muscles churning around in there. Lucky us: we got to see his shoulder muscles up close and personal when he graciously opened up his skin so we could get a peek. Don't really want to see that again.
So we called All Saints back. And loaded Otto back into the car to go back to Hendersonville, for the second time in a few hours. Otto was caught completely off-guard. Best I can tell, he never stopped purring all through having his skin ripped back open, but he was not prepared for the dreaded carrier again, much less the dreaded car ride. Eyes wide, he yowled even more insistently than before the whole way back to the vet. This time, Otto got two staples in the spot where his skin had come open, and an extra antibiotic shot, just to be on the safe side. On the way home, Otto did not stop yowling. He was just completely confused by this point. The day had started off so calmly, and now he'd spent two hours in the car with two vet visits thrown in for good measure. Otto was not having a good day.
Everything seemed to be back on track until yesterday. Sean was finishing up his work at the end of the day with Otto purring contentedly on his lap. Suddenly, Sean looked down to his leg where something had just dripped on him. That something was red. As was Otto's incision site. He had just opened up another part of his incision, higher up on his neck this time. (You may remember that this incision was something like five inches long.) Sean was basically done with work for the day, so instead of me taking him (again), Sean was nice enough to do the honors so I could get some more housework done. I'm sure Otto preferred that, anyway. "Perplexed" doesn't even begin to describe Otto's reaction to being loaded into the carrier again for the third time in 28 hours. His low-pitched, anxious wailing probably concerned some of the neighbors, from a few streets away.
His two staples have now multiplied to six staples and we are crossing our fingers that these will be the last ones. We're hopeful that three trips to the vet for Otto will be the charm. And Otto will need to restrict his international flight itinerary for a while, because he's never going to make it through those metal detectors at the airport, at least for the next three weeks.
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