Donald: Week One

     It's been a week since Donald had his left hind leg amputated due to osteosarcoma.  He is doing very well learning to walk on three legs. It's kind of like watching someone with a broken leg walk on crutches. His front legs move forward in a quick one-two step and then he hops forward with his hind leg centered down the middle. looking down on him from above he really does form a tripod with his three legs to maintain his equilibrium.
    The first few days were difficult and he kind of banged up his stump as he overdid it trying to jump up on the bed, or couch. He quickly learned his limitations, and how to ask to be lifted onto the bed when it's bedtime. My main concern was keeping the stitches intact.  This meant keeping the elizabethan collar on him when I was at work, or at home sleeping. In general, he was very well behaved and only gave himself a general body bath  which seemed to soothe and relax him. He plucked at the stitches a couple of times, as a test, but I quickly let a yell out of me and he didn't like that at all.

     One result of the E-collar has been that we are developing potty issues.  Since he can't get in and out of the litter box with the cover on it, I had to remove the cover.  It seems he did not appreciate this. He peed a couple of times into his blanket and some towels which I had put on the floor to protect it from his drainage. (All of those stitches produce a lot of oozing ) As a result he changed his substrate preference from the kitty litter to the towels and blankets. I returned things back to the way they were before and that seems to have done the trick as he now tinkles in the litter box again.
    However, later in the week, I realized I had not seen a pooh either in the litter box or anywhere about the apartment. I became concerned and told the vet about it. Her reply was, "well, he must be doing something with them.." I asked for some Catlax when we went in for the suture removal, and once again things began to move in the right direction.
     He went for his suture removal last Thursday and I was really proud of how good the incision looked. It was a long, 7 inch incision. Unfortunately, the vet was only able to remove 2 or 3 of the stitches before she said he would have to come back in a week for the remainder of the sutures to be removed. I was so disappointed, for Donald's sake. I was hoping we would be done with the E-collar so he could get back into his litter box routine. I really felt the collar was stressing him out and cramping his style. But I continue to be the daddy and make him wear it just so we don't have any disasters this far into the game. What's one more week? He's making great progress otherwise in coping and adapting, as am I.
     Right now, he's rolling in catnip on the floor,quite oblivious to the fact that he only has three legs. If I ever come down with the big C, I'm sure I'll need medical marijuana. I need to learn to think like a cat and I'll be just fine.

Donald's Surgery

Donald went through his leg amputation today. It was necessary, yet it begs the question. Can you feel someone's pain?  I am of the firm belief that you cannot.  I can feel my own pain, I can sympathize with what you are going through. I can imagine myself going through the pain, some call that empathy. But I cannot feel the pain that you are feeling when you are feeling it. Bill Clinton famously once said "I feel your pain" at a debate for president.  This isn't a political debate, yet the point is Bill Clinton can't feel my pain, and I can't feel Donald's pain.  I know what it feels like to have a wisdom tooth pulled. I've had muscle spasms in my back and shoulder. I know how painful they are. Yet I've never had a leg amputated. I've never even had a broken bone.

   As Donald's owner, I have a job to do. Here is a list of projects.
     1. Raise the head of my bed a few inches so that Donald can scoot under it with an Elizabethan collar.
      2. Remove cleaning supplies from under the bathroom sink and place a second set of food and water bowls in the bathroom near the litter box for easy access.

     Donald pulled through his surgery today. I called for an update and the tech said he was awake, moving around a little, and resting. These are all things that he did before the surgery. I can only deduce from this information that he is okay. I have asked for a biopsy and it was sent off via Fedex today after the surgery. From Donald's point of view, I hope he's glad that nasty ole' leg is gone.  No more pain. He can come out from under the bed more often.  I'm sure he'll let me know what he thinks about the whole thing when he gets home from the hospital in a few days..

Update On Donald

After conferring with the vet, and doing research on the internet, I decided to give Donald the surgery he needs. He will have his left leg amputated at the hip. The cancer is lower down on the leg, around what I guess would be his knee joint. The vet wants to remove all of the bone that may possibly be affected.  The X-rays showed that his lungs were clear of cancer. However, there is no guarantee that the cancer won't spread to some other organ of his body.  Amputation isn't a cure for cancer, it is considered a palliative treatment. This means that it does not cure the underlying cause, it only reduces the pain and suffering of the individual.
     In Donald's case, he has probably been in some discomfort from the cancer in his leg bone since I picked him up from the SPCA a little over a year ago. One of the symptoms of cancer in animals is that they hide. It is a natural instinct to want to conceal their weaknesses. He always had a funny sideways gait which I attributed to having to navigate slippery laminated floors. There must always have been a weakness in his leg which hindered him from jumping up onto high places. He can jump up onto the bed or couch now, but it is after a concentrated ready-set-jump effort in which he has to take extra time to gauge distance and height.
     On the day after the diagnosis I decided I had to "do" something. So what did I do? I went shopping. I bought Donald a 2' x 6' runner carpet to put in front of the bed. This effectively enlarged his comfort zone by 12 square feet. He can now jump up and down from the bed easier, and lounge beside the bed, instead of under it all the time. Donald is pleased with his new rug.

    Well, the surgery is scheduled for tomorrow morning. Donald has been fasting since I left for work, and now that I'm home from work he's concerned because there is still no food or water down for him, not even a treat. I feel bad because I can tell he thinks he has done something wrong, committed some horrible crime to deserve this withholding of food. He's chortling and asking ever so politely, "Please Sir, may I have a bit to eat?"

    It's time for us to get to bed and try to get some rest for tomorrow. He'll curl up next to my pillow and purr me to sleep. It's going to be hard to fall asleep when he's away in the hospital.

Donald: A Cat's Life

Donald and I met on 11/12/2010 at the SPCA. I was much enamored of his orange tabby coat, but he would have none of it. He buried his face and allowed me to massage his ears because it soothed the itch of the ear mites from which he suffered, but that was the extent of his affection. He had me at meow.
    Ours has been an on again off again relationship. "On" when he needs a Can of moist food opened or his litter box cleaned.  "Off" when he is satiated and is satisfied that his poo and pee have been thus removed. Donald spent the first nine months of our relationship under the bed. I could lay in bed and listen to his large metallic purr emanate from under the bed. I assumed he was just playing Greta Garbo and he was telling me 'I vant to be alone'. So I gave him his space. Eventually, he came around.
     He was such a well behaved cat.  He always seemed appreciative, yet aloof.   Never jumping up on chairs, or tables, or counter tops. I thought it odd at first. Just not normal kitty behavior.  Since he was a stray found wandering on a military base, I figured he had been turned loose by a soldier deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. I assumed that he had never been properly socialized, or worse yet that he had been abused. I spent nights wondering what was going on in that little kitty brain of his that he couldn't tell me about.
     Donald always spooked easily. No matter how carefully I moved he would dash to his 'safe place' under the bed.  I've seen him at the slightest sound hurl himself off the bed and wipe out on the laminated wood flooring as he scrambles under the bed.   I have a small apartment, an efficiency really, so there aren't that many places for him to hide. He never had any interest in the front door, never asked to be let out, never met me when I came home. In the interest of full disclosure, Donald is a 12 pound, well muscled, scaredy-cat.
    As time went on, Donald realized that 'hey, maybe I should pay some attention to this dude who is feeding me'.  So...if I lay quietly on the couch watching a movie, Donald would grudgingly jump up and bid for my attention. And so it went for months. The head of my bed is next to a window that looks out over the roof tops. When Donald realized that he could lay there and watch birds flutter by, or snowflakes drift by, of course that immediately became his spot.  So now I wake up each morning to a 12 pound cat in my face.
     Donald started limping around the time of his first vaccination, November of 2011.  At first I thought he jumped of the bed and landed wrong. It was holiday time of 2011 so I put it off.  While we were laying on the couch I would massage his leg, and I could feel a lump around what would be his knee. I became concerned so I made an appointment with the vet.

    We always hope that X-rays will rule out cancer. Today, they confirmed our worst fears. Donald was diagnosed with bone cancer.  Many things run through your head, until you are confronted with an X-ray.  It is there, in black and white, literally. Donald was a trooper through the whole thing. I know he doesn't like to be held or manipulated and yet he stood still while they took the x-rays. He is on pain meds and catnip now as he hides under the bed.
    Today our journey begins.