All this and no cone of shame?

After eight years of dental neglect, Nadine needed a thorough cleaning and surgery to remove two bad teeth. In addition, I decided to go ahead and have the small mammary mass removed while she was in surgery. She would spend the day at the vet so I dropped her off in the morning to a warm reception by the receptionists, who knew Nadine and I by this point, as we had visited a couple times recently for pre-surgery blood-work and "sample" deliveries. (At her first check-up, Nadine's bladder was empty so they couldn't retrieve a sample. Nadine was regularly peeing on my kitchen floor, so they had given me a plastic syringe in the hopes I would be able to slurp some up. I spent a week trying to get her to pee on my floor - um, kind of NOT what I was training for, people!)

I tearily left her in the kind hands of the vet tech, Amanda, and headed to work. Side note about Amanda: I'm sure she loves all the animals, or at least most, that she works with, but I was particularly impressed on Nadine's follow-up visit when she stopped in the exam room to "just say hi" to Nadine, even through she wasn't working with her that day. What did I say about everyone loving Nadine?!

I spent a fretful day at work, hoping the surgery would go smoothly. I repeated like a mantra that both surgeries were simple and straightforward, but that only got me so far. Luckily, I have a wonderful volunteer and friend who helps me run my department at work and she was there that day. Julia was a welcome distraction to my worries as we chatted and whittled away the minutes watching videos of a cat named Maru who loves big boxes and little boxes.

The vet called later that afternoon with a report. Overall, everything was a success. Nadie had come out of the surgery and was in recovery doing fine. The mass was removed, but they also had to take off her nipple because it was so close to the mass. I suppose Nadine doesn't mind - she has five others after all and no plans, much less ability since she had been fixed, to have more babies. This gal's uterus has seen enough action. The mass would be tested for malignancy and I would find out in a few, yet very long, days if it was cancerous.

The teeth cleaning was a slightly different story. They determined in surgery that she needed 5 teeth removed - 3 more then expected - leaving quite a few gaps in her set. In addition, the vet recommended that her two front canines be removed. They were both loose and wiggly making them vulnerable to becoming abscessed. My last pet, a crazy and fantastic cat named Cheska, had developed an abscessed tooth when she was 19 years old. At that age, there was no surgery her little body could handle so I had to make that awful decision to put her to sleep. Because of that, hearing that Nadine could also develop an abscess had me quite worried.

Good kitty!

Additionally, this would be a much more complicated operation and not one the veterinary office could perform. Canine removal in small dogs can break the dog's jawbone. My vet doesn't have the ability to handle that so the surgery must be done at a dog dentist who is prepared for that complication. Dog dentist? Who knew? Me and my wallet groaned. Again.

Thankfully, that surgery wasn't urgent so I decided to hold off a bit to let Nadine recover from this surgery and give us a chance to finally get to know each other. It had only been 4 days since I had picked her up from my parents' house, after all. She needed a rest from vet exams, traveling the midwest, and a succession of new homes while I needed a chance to learn her traits, attempt to housebreak her, and train her on the basics.

Julia, being an animal lover and a very thoughtful person, offered to pick up Nadine and I from the vet. With a purse full of meds, no cone of shame (unless she started to lick her wounds which she never did), and Nadine curled up on the passenger's side floor quite possibly ruing the day she meet me, we headed home.