He pretty much stayed that way for the next 24 hours – he looked miserable, and he lay around my bathroom (where we had secluded him with many comfy beds and food and water) with a truly awful smell emanating from every pore. At first we thought he was urinating everywhere, because the smell was so bad, but I think it was just fear and pain and pheromones.
Poor guy. To make matters worse, we had pain meds that we needed to squirt in his mouth, without touching his mouth or lips or gums in any way. That is, the meds could touch all those places, but we weren’t allowed to pull his lips back to get the meds in, or to touch his upper or lower jaws. We had some luck the morning after the surgery, but after that it was IMPOSSIBLE to do. We ended up having to go back to the vet and get some pain meds that we could put directly in his food.
By Friday he seemed to have turned a corner, and by the weekend he was purring up a storm. Part of the reason why we were doing the surgery in the first place was because the vet had said he would feel so much better, even without teeth, and we would notice a difference right away. (She also said that his spraying issues were almost without a doubt a result of his mouth pain, and that the behavior would stop once his mouth no longer hurt him. It did not. We got a shelf from Ikea to hold some of Owen’s toys, and a few days later Plum sprayed the shelf. Sigh). And I have to say that I do notice a difference in mood. Partly in how often and loudly he purrs now, but he is also much more up and about and getting into mischief and talking and scolding and whatnot.
So now Plum can no longer have dry cat food, and we have to buy twice as many cans of the wet as we did previously. But Sir Plum is happy! And always wanting to be picked up and cuddled….so there’s that.
Plum thinking, you thought my mouth would be puckered, didn’t you?
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