Status report on Betty

First off, the funny bit.

I was kind of freaking. The place I took him (Alta Vista Animal hospital, an completely impressive facility) is very much like those ER programs you see on TV; where they keep the family members out of the doctors' way while the patient is being attended to. I have never taken a pet to the vet before where I was not with the animal for everything except Xrays and surgery, and I kept asking to see Betty. I finally got to see him once they had him settled into his cage for the night. The label on his cage was:

Betty
(Mr)

and that made me laugh. (First time since the attack.) From now on I will introduce him as Mr. Betty.

So, now the report ...

Betty is no longer huddled unresponsively in a little ball in his cage, but walking around (stiffly, but quite steadily). He is eating and drinking well. The puncture wounds are draining well but still tender and he was purring his little heart out during all of this morning's evalutation. He is still on antibiotics and pain killers.

He will be in hospital until the surgeon has reviewed the xrays. There is a rather large and disturbing lump outside his abdominal wall, but it does not have the characteristics of a hernia to the duty vet's eyes. Although the xray of the lungs was abnormal, he is breathing well (much better than he was yesterday, when the vet was quite concerned). It may simply be a serious contusion, but time is required before they can be positive on that score.

Because Betty is such a young cat (not quite 5 months old) and the growth plates on his bones are still active, the vet thinks that the pelvic fracture is along one of the plates, in which case the prognosis is excellent for perfect healing.

He will remain at least another day, so the surgical consultant can review a few of the things from the xray that are a bit worrisome, but the vet was very upbeat when he called me, so I don't think I will need to eat the last half of the chocolate cake I started on last night when I was still super-freaked. (Good thing too; I used up almost all of my vanilla ice cream with last night's freak-out cake binge.)