martygreene

Sobriety is home!

She's so far eaten almost 3 tablespoons of food (MUCH more than she ate at the vet), drank some water, had her meds, tried to explore my bedroom, sat in my lap on a pillow, and slept a lot.

She's sleeping now. Hopefully she pees soon, and not on her cast.

If anyone has a baby monitor that they could lend me, that would be great. I need one for her.

Sobriety has shaken the anestesia, and had a nice visit with Jeremy and I today. The doctors say she should be home for a short while starting tomorrow or Friday. Let's hope so. She still needs more surgery most likely, but they want to wait a bit first. She was quite alert and seemed to enjoy getting love from Jeremy and I. She's got lots of funny little shaved spots, so I think I'll wait on the fan for her until the fur grows in and overheating is actually a thing to think of- right now I wanna keep her warm. I'll be so glad to have her home, this has been such an ordeal for all of us.

So much to do to prepare for her coming home, and setting up her kennel! If you are local to us, and have any old towels/sheets/blankets/mattress pads/rubberized tablecloths that you can donate as kennel bedding they would be greatly appreciated. I'm running a load of kennel liner laundry now, but I forsee going through a lot more than we think in the next couple months of kennel living.

Just got back from seeing Sobriety- she's looking very much more like herself. She was awake and alert and nuzzled my hand when I was petting her. She fell asleep with me petting her again today. Very cute. The nurses there said that she's such a cute kitty, and very well behaved, and that they've been petting her a lot. That made me very happy.

She goes in for surgery a little later this afternoon, and if all goes well she comes home tomorrow early afternoon or so. I'm so grateful for everything that the doctors and nurses have done for her, but in the Emergency Clinic and Pittsburgh Veterinary Surgery.

I'll update again when I hear back from the doctors after she comes out of surgery.

The one and only lovely Sobriety kitty:

Last summer, sitting on the front porch in the sun.


This past winter, posing with me in the kitchen, taking pictures of makeup.

I go see her tonight at 9pm. My poor kitty.
Now I'm off to gather items to sell to fund her care and recovery.

Also, I realized I've not yet mentioned what we believe happened. As far as we can tell, we think she was hit by a car. My poor kitty!

Still waiting for the call from the doctors, and cleaning up for the kitty.

I'm putting together a few boxes of items to sell to raise money for the Sobriety Recovery Fund, as well as means for paypal donations.

If you feel like helping out, anything is appreciated. I've stocked up on the litter we use, and am waiting to hear what food the doctor wants me to feed her.

The doctor just called, and she's doing much better! Her temperature is up, her heart-rate is better, and she's had a full bladder all night which indicates no kidney damage! Good job Sobriety, such a good kitty! All last night I dreampt I was with her telling her that she had to be strong, that she had to get strong so that the doctors can help her and so that she can come home.

I'm off to see her now, and at noon she will be anestitized so they can re-set her hip, and suture up her leg. She'll be bandaged up for a while and a bit of a cumbersome kitty, but she'll be home!

More news when I have some.

Thanks for all the love and support, it really helped!

This morning I went downstairs to go out and saw Sobriety laying completely normally on the couch. Typical summer kitty sprawl. I went to pick her up and when I did she gave the most painful meowl and I saw that her hind leg (right I believe, but I'm too mixed up in the head to be sure right now) was stripped bare almost to the bone on the inside. I immediately called the vet and mom, and we took her to the kitty ER. I did what I could, translating my people first aid to kitty first aid (kept her warm, brought her water, kept her calm and still). She tried to get up and fell off the couch the poor thing. At the ER they gave her pain meds right away, and did an initial X-ray to check for internal damage. From what we can tell, there is no internal injury, although there is a possibility that the tissue which connects her bladder and kidneys may have been damaged (either that or we just caught kidney failure early due to this- I'm hoping it's that becuase it can be treated and means she can be treated for these injuries sooner). She's in shock right now, is 5 degrees down in body temperature, and her heart rate is slowed. They've given her meds to keep her heart rate up, and have her on a heating pad with a hot water bottle and a blanket (along with the towel from home that I brought her covered in, which smells like Jeremy and I). If all goes well I hear from the doctor tonight at 8pm about her condition. If anything goes wrong, they will call me ASAP. I had to make a decision whether or not to attempt to resucitate her if she were to go into cardiac arrest, and I had to make that decision alone. I wish Jeremy were here to help with all this, but he's not. I decided against it because I know the chances of it working, the chances of survival for any mentionable length of time if it worked, and because she is an older cat and I'd rather not put her through that stress if she beat all the odds. Hopefully it won't come to that. I pray that it won't.

So now I sit, and cry, and wait.

I want my kitty to be ok. I know she'll have a pretty bad scar, but hopefully that is all that she'll have, and she'll be able to be a normal kitty again. With a dislocated hip at her age, it's possible she'll need surgery to make her hip stay in it's socket. I am amazed by her strength- she had to have gone up at least 5 stairs, jump up onto a couch, onto the back of the couch, go through a window, jump down off the window, up onto the couch, and THEN lay down exhausted for her to end up where she was when I found her. Adrenaline does a lot I guess.

So sitting, crying, waiting... and hoping.