Hello, I figured I would share Fiona's first week post surgery as it might help future cat parents understand and prepare for the different behaviors after an amputation.  We picked Fiona up about 24 hours after her surgery.  They gave her a 3-day dose of painkillers and sent us home with Gabapentin.  We also went ahead and scheduled her stitches to be removed the following weekend (11 days post surgery).  During her time at the vet, they had fed her by hand and she did urinate so I knew we had a window of time to get her settled at home.

At home, Fiona's "safe space" is under our bed so we made the decision to turn our bedroom into her recovery space. I decked out the space under our bed with soft fleece and down blankets.  I put her litter along a runner on one side of the room and her food on the other.  When we let her out of her carrier she was very, very whoozy and tumbled right into her water bowl--she then dashed under the bed and didn't want to engage with us so we let her rest--keeping the room warm and dark.  She didn't growl or hiss--mainly she clearly signaled she wanted to be alone by turning her back on us and we understood. That first night we stayed with her in the room, but decided to move to the guest room so she could have total peace and rest comfortably.  

The next morning (Wed) was victory number 1: she drank water!  A lot of it.  That was a good thing.  Our vet checked in that afternoon and I expressed concern about it being nearly 24 hours since she used her litter and we agreed to check in the next day and do an ultrasound at the vet if she had not urinated.  She also had not eaten anything since we brought her home. This didn't surprise me as much as Fiona is a distracted, fussy eater on her best days.  Our vet said give her anything. Heat it up so the smell is strong and consider getting rotisserie chicken at the grocery store (despite being a pescatarian myself, I trudged over and got chicken, which of course she had like one bit and turned away so now we have a chicken in our freezer). Hand feeding her was not going great--she just seemed annoyed and kept turning her head so I figured we'd give it some more time. I realized, too, that Fiona wasn't ready to leave the safety of the bed so I pushed her litter box under the bed to see if that might help drive results in that department.

Thursday morning we had victories number 2 and 3: I discovered she had used her litter box overnight and we finally got her to eat something: Trader Joe's smoked trout in oil. She also drank more water and ate some kitty treats so a positive day.  

Friday and Saturday were more of the same--pee detected in the box and nibbling at different types of food, but not scarfing anything down. (Again, she isn't like that on normal days so I'm not overly concerned).  My heart almost burst with love when I walked in on my husband on his belly hand feeding Fiona cat treats and coaxing her on. I've got a really good guy and having him with me through this tough experience--well, I'm just grateful. The final victory came on Sunday morning: she pooped in her litter box!  I have to say I've never been so excited to clean up cat poop!  

Yet she continued to mark all these milestones from the safety and comfort of her under the bed "nest" and we didn't want to push her.  Yesterday (Sunday) she emerged and stood awkwardly on three legs she then crawled up on my lap and my husband and I snuggled with her for about 20 minutes until she was ready to return to the safety underneath the bed.  We told her she was our brave girl and I can't deny I had some tears in my eyes so proud of her progress.

I'm home with her today working, but heading back to the office tomorrow. She is healing up nicely and I'm glad she's taking this pace of slow, steady recovery.  Overall, Fiona has been calm and quiet during her recovery. We've let her dictate and direct and that's worked for us. Hope this recap helps other going through or prepping for this.