Gimps

Guess who showed up on my doorstep last night? Jack in a box, carried by D-, who had sprung him from the kitty hospital on her way home from work. She knew I was feeling bummed about Sweetie, and figured a kitten in need of nursing care would cheer me up. We read the copy of his medical records to figure out what all needed to be done for him - poor guy, he must have had a hundred enemas since the weekend. Well, two or three a day, anyway, and he got SQ hydration a few times and was started on lactulose to loosen his bowels and help keep them moving.

Jack looked great, and fortunately the only confinement orders are to not allow him to climb stairs. Sharea was delighted to see her old buddy, after the obligate hisses and bops to let him know who was in charge of this house. He looks to be improving slowly but steadily, using his bad leg for balance with decent proximal control, and having muscular control of the proximal two inches of his tail. That means a lot in terms of cleanliness, because he can lift it out of the way when he eliminates.

Stool is softer than toothpaste, but he has control of the urge to defecate. He's still lacking that last bit of sphincter strength to clean things off completely sometimes, so I do have to keep an eye on the floor. Things are looking up for little Captain Jack.

Jack's not the only gimp in the house, so we commiserate with each other. These are a few photos of my other buddy, the Cryo Cuff.

For over three weeks now I've looked even more like a What Not To Wear refugee than I usually do. Here's my typical garment, the sweat pant, covering my lumpy left knee.

Concealed is a Cryo Cuff and a stocking. I thought the stocking was to compress the swelling, but my surgeon informed me at my last visit that is is mostly there to protect my skin from the Cryo Cuff.

The cuff has a valve that attaches to a tube that runs to a cooler filled with ice and water. Attach the tube, open the air valve and put the cooler on the floor and the warm water drains out of the cuff.

Raise the cooler with the air vent open and the cuff fills with ice water. The cooler lives on my kitchen counter during the day. It's like a little filling station where I stop every hour or two to fill up.

That's the life of a gimp. TLC for what hurts or doesn't work well while waiting for things to get better. In the meantime, doing what you can. And on that note, here's a video clip of Sharea and Jack playing before he went back to the hospital. Even with that leg not working well at all he completely acts like a kitten, though you can see that he was excessively concerned about what was going on behind at the time.