Less teeth, more silly

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Thursday was a big day for Miss Merus.  She finally undergwent extractions for pronounced gingivitis that was unresponsive to numerous conservative treatments attempted since January.  The only thing that did show promise was prednisolone, though she cannot tolerate the treatment as it caused a nasty flare up of her left eye.  (She and Sadie have benign feline virus that is usually benign with minimal symptoms, but when kitteh is immunocompromised it wreaks utter havoc.  In Merus's case an otherwise minimal eye discharge turned into copious drainage, dark red sclera/conjunctiva, and swollen shut.)

The last few weeks of waiting for surgery have been just shy of torcher for poor Merus, with Buprenex pain killer to get her through.  Eating was an ordeal.  She no longer came to food since the visual or sound of the food bowl was enough to trigger pain by association and send her diving for cover.  It took a minimum of 10 minutes for the whole process of finding her, minimizing distractions, and tricking her to eat before her brain figured it out.  Probably the only benefit of being in the post-school pre-job limbo land is ample time for taking care of my ailing kitteh.  Well, that and studying for the licensure exam, but you know what I mean.


The extraction estimate included 4-6 maxillary (upper) molars.  When they called with an update as she started to recover from surgery, I was not surprised at all to hear that they actually pulled seven teeth.  The gingivitis was nasty and warranted removal of all six aforementioned molars, three on each side, though those teeth were themselves in okay shape, considering.  The seventh tooth was the rear mandibular (lower) molar on the left.  It had a major cavity that nearly went all the way through.  Neither the vet nor I had seen any evidence of it because Merus never let us get an actual good look into her mouth.  Likely the reason why pain meds had such a limited effect the week leading up to surgery.

Now that the teeth are out she is like a whole new cat.  Some discomfort, some loopiness induced by continued pain meds, but she actually seeks out food voluntarily and is amazingly more social.  Giving her the pain meds is much less of a process.  It seems the pain of recovery is less than the pain of her gum/tooth disease.

Thank. Good. Ness.

The evening following surgery - already a whole new kitteh.  You can kinda make out the little square shaved off her right arm for the IV.

I have a feeling that a second goofy troublemaker is soon to be unleashed.  Already Merus is knocking stuff over (living up to her full Brontomerus name) and is sidewinding like Sadie is wont. 

The original troublemaker, exhibit A, while trying to give Merus her pain meds.

Exhibit B.  Followed soon by more chewing on non-edibles.  *Sigh*