In Which Piggy Discovers What He's Been Missing

Hi everyone:

It's Allison, Grover and Piggy's mom. Listen, I am so touched by the outpouring of love and generosity through your comments and emails and blog postings for Pig. Words cannot express how much it means to us to know that people (and kitties!) who have not yet met our boys in person can hold them in their hearts and prayers and help guide us through.

Thank you. Those words sound so insignificant. But I'll say them again. Thank you!!

We should have test results on Monday. Pig took quite a while to come out of anesthesia yesterday, but he did just fine and has some cool stitches to show for it. Stay tuned for Grover's post entitled: Frankenpiggy!

The incision was for the bone marrow extraction and also for the lymphnode biopsy. The endoscopy already showed one thing, which is that he has mass erosion in his digestive track all the way along. I'll be very happy to know what we are dealing with as this has been ongoing since December 23rd. And still, Piggy is acting completely normal. So strange...

Something funny: Pig's vet told me he had sedated Pig and Pig was laid out on the table when the Pathologist arrived. The Pathologist, having not expected to see a big, pink, bald cat laid out, stopped in his tracks, his face drained of color and he held onto the door frame to steady himself...because he thought that the big, pink, bald thing lying there was a BABY!

Hee hee. So, that had me laughing yesterday (and today, too!) :)

When we got home from the vet, Pig immediately ate a giant bowl of food, drank a big bowl of water, pooped, peed and began licking and scratching at his stitches (which were, according to his vet, in a place he can't reach...yeah, right).

He started to bleed a bit from the incision, so I wrapped the wound with this sticky gauze stuff, going around his chest and under his legs. He was not pleased, and as soon as I let him go, he began walking backwards and howling. Then he ran under the bed and proceeded to scratch the gauze off.

Then I put a band-aid over the incision. That worked for about 2 minutes and then he licked it off.

So I wrapped him, again, in the gauze, deciding he will just have to deal with it; but it was pitiful to watch him walk around backwards and howl so I took it off.

I called the vet, who was closing in 10 minutes, and they were very apologetic because they thought he wouldn't be able to lick or scratch there (why? why would they think that?!) and said they would, since they were closing in ten minutes, leave one of those "Elizabethan collars" at the pet store across the street from their office for me to come pick up.

I started to get dressed to go do that and realized I couldn't leave the house and leave Pig here alone as Pig was scratching the bejesus out of his stitches. As I stood there figuring out what to do, the vet tech called back and said that it would be better if I put a sweater on him instead of the collar.

I said, "Pig does not have any sweaters because he is a CAT AND CATS DON'T WEAR CLOTHES!" I know people DO dress their cats...especially Sphynxs and I always think it's cute when I see it...(Piggy's littermate, Rocky, has a wardrobe of clothes and costumes bigger than my own!) but I myself have never put a sweater on Pig and it didn't lessen the quality of either of our lives.

The vet tech told me that she thinks a sweater would work better than the collar because the collar is not going to come down far enough to cover the incision.

She suggested I not buy one in a pet store because they are stupidly expensive, especially since he won't be wearing it again (because his mom, me, is, apparently, a judgmental bitch), and she suggested I go to a baby store and buy a cheapie baby sweater, something he could wear for at least 2 days til the incision starts to heal a bit.

I tell her that there are no 'baby stores' near me and I'm home alone and I can't leave him to even come get the collar because he is trying to rip his stitches out RIGHT NOW and of course then I start to cry.

She says, "You're small...maybe one of your tee-shirts will work."

I tell her I will go try to find something and she said she will stay there until I call back to tell her everything is OK.

I start frantically ripping through my closet - even my smallest tee is (obviously!) too big for Pig.

Then my creative mind kicks in (as the hysterics do), and I start searching through my socks for the widest ones - I try to get one over his head and he freaks out and, in the process, gouges my ankle, so now I am bleeding, too.

I find another sock and cut holes in what I think are the approximate location of his front legs. I am able to pull this sock over his head, but I'd made the leg holes off-center, so now he's howling again.

I take that sock off him and go into the duffel bag that has all my circus clothes that I no longer have a reason to wear since I was injured in 2007 and can no longer do aerial acrobatics. I found this very tight pair of thigh-length, thick, red, stretchy leggings that I used to wear over my unitard to help protect myself from the burn of the tissu and trapeze in class.

I held it against Pig to figure out where the leg holes should be, and then I cut slots in the leggings, pulled one leg (from the foot hole) over his head, stuck his front paws through the slots (perfect placement this time, thank goodness!), folded the ribbing down on his neck like a turtleneck would be, and cut the 'shirt' off a few inches behind his front legs.

Well, he immediately calmed down and it is obvious he's a little traitor to my 'cats don't wear clothes' stance because he LOVES his sweater. He was all proud and started licking me and prancing around like some kind of diva. I swear I saw him glance in the mirror and admire his dapperness. Then he climbed on me and started purring loudly and went to sleep.

And he hasn't scratched at or licked the incision, or even paid any attention to it at all, since.

And now the little bugger has converted me into a person who PUTS CLOTHES ON HER CAT! So welcome me to the club, y'all.

Pig had a very odd poop this a.m. - a huge pile of barely digested food, but his vet said this is normal after having an endoscopy and it should resolve itself in a few days.

Pig, still in his fancy sweater, (I think he looks totally freaking hilarious in it, so I have to keep peeking at him) is sleeping under his blanket on the bed and is as happy, as the saying goes, a Pig in shit. I'll keep you posted when we have some news on Monday...

Thank you, again, from all of us. You are forever in our hearts. We appreciate you!

OX

Allison, Grover and Piggy