I am assuming that you want an update on the cat, who, when last we spoke, was at the vet getting neutered.
He is fine. A little depressed, in my estimation, and possibly a little bit embarrassed and/or miffed by the state of his testicles, but fine. Also, if you’d rather not read several tedious paragraphs about my cat’s post-surgical experience, I urge you to skip right on down to the list of dinners below.
The recovery period after the neutering procedure is supposedly two weeks. The instruction sheet the vet sent home with me says that under no circumstances are we allowed to remove the cone they sent home with us. (The vet doesn’t call it a cone; they call it an Elizabethan collar, and it cost $20, by the way. For $20, I would think that it wouldn’t rotate so that the Velcro/opaque segment of the cone is directly in front of his sight line, but apparently I’m wrong.) With the cone on, the cat cannot eat well or drink water easily, he cannot clean himself, he keeps running into things, his balance is off so he can’t successful jump onto something even as short as a step, he cannot rest his head comfortably, his neck is constantly itchy, and he adopts various mournful positions that make him look very pitiful indeed. His fur is greasy and he lies around a lot more than is typical. I do not see how this is sustainable for two weeks.
So: We have been removing the cone as frequently as possible and simply supervising the cat so he doesn’t lick anything. He does wear the cone – excuse me, Elizabethan collar – at night, when he sleeps in a bathroom we’ve converted into a temporary cat cave.
The vet and the internet insisted that I buy special litter for him, post-surgery. It’s pellets made up of newspaper and it’s probably much better in many ways than the litter we’ve been using since we got him, but he refuses to use it. He has taken to meowing at us when he has to go to the bathroom, and one of us has to escort him to his regular litter box. (The litter box is in a part of the basement we don’t want him in when he’s not in a cone; too many niches for him to hide in and commence furtive licking.)
One of the other admonitions in the vet’s instructions is to keep him calm. For two weeks. He’s actually been pretty good, so far. We have a shoe box he likes to play in, and he’s been batting springs and fuzzy worms around inside the box, and that seems to occupy him pretty well without requiring a ton of athletic movement. Carla made him a special water toy that we learned about online but he wasn’t super into it. Maybe we’ll have to try it again. He’s also spending a lot of time in the sunroom or at the window in my office, monitoring the bug and squirrel activity outside.
Okay, okay. Here is a photo of him in his Elizabethan collar. Please don’t tell him I shared this with the entire internet.
Okay! Enough about the cat! Let’s discuss my other favorite topic: FOOD.
Now. It is September, and school is back in session, and I need to get back into the dinner planning groove. Let’s see: we’re visiting friends for dinner tonight. Carla is trying a new sport this fall, and she has games every week. That means I need at least one meal each week that produces enough leftovers for us to eat after her game. We’ve been pretty consistently doing at least one night of Search the House for Your Own Meal, and one night of takeout. So that leaves me with three meals to make.
Oh – that reminds me: I keep trying to figure out snacks I can send to school with Carla that she can eat before sports practice or before a game. The snacks can’t have nuts, and I would prefer that they have some nourishment in them, rather than just calories. I’m not opposed to “just calories,” and in fact have been sending her with Cheez-Its and cheese ballsand granola bites and fruit snacks because she will eat those things… but I would love ideas for things that have other benefits besides calories. I’m not sure those things exist, though, especially nut-free things that do not require refrigeration. I am happy to BAKE things, as well. And, even though my “she will eat this” expectations are low for most new/nourishing foods, I am willing to TRY things, even if Carla ends up refusing to eat them. If you have any ideas, let me have ’em.
Okay, back to the dinners.
Dinners for the Week of September 1-7
- Salmon Burgers with Cucumber Quinoa Salad: We have salmon burgers in the freezer, so all I have to do is make the salad, which I can then eat for lunches.
- Greek Salad with Grilled Chicken: My parents return to our part of the country this week, and I want to have them over for dinner and to meet the kitten. Greek salad has kind of become my go-to for guests – it’s so easy to prep in advance, and it’s so tasty.
- Beef Birria: You know what else I have in the freezer? Beef birria! And we have enough for at least two meals. I plan to make the tacos in the oven (as in this recipe) rather than on the stove. And then maybe I’ll turn the ingredients into enchiladas (a la these chicken enchiladas) the second night.
What are you eating this first week in September?
Sigh, poor Leo. I hope that the next two weeks speed by and that he is soon collar free.
Last week our menu alternated each night between burritos and pasta (sauce c/o of my SIL’s garden fresh tomatoes – yum!) and this week…um…let me get back to you on that. We will eat something. If all else fails I can break out the leftover burrito fixings in the freezer.
I have the hardest time finding convenient food that is also not just calories. Plus my children are picky and while I would like to send them a handful of grains and a whole watermelon, they would sit in front of it and starve. Elizabeth eats the pouch applesauces and that is a major component of her out of the house nutrition and Alex will occasionally eat one if forced, but Ryan won’t eat any fruit that isn’t a freshly peeled and cut up apple so that isn’t something that travels. I also send individual cheeses with an ice pack but again, that mainly only works for Elizabeth. Alex will eat a whole apple or a whole banana but only if they aren’t bruised and she walks into school swinging her lunchbox like she’s being paid by the lunchbox swinging committee. Sunflower seeds have worked occasionally and so have pumpkin seeds (and neither of those are nuts). But it’s basically impossible. Alex (and her picky best friend) both went through a trail mix period after we did make-your-own-trail-mix at Girl Scouts so perhaps try that one. We did lots of little containers of snacks and seeds and let them assemble their own, with just enough mini M&Ms and mini marshmallows to make them think it was a treat.
Our dinners this week are chicken shawarma, chicken quesadillas, chicken broccoli stir fry, and pasta with sun dried tomato cream sauce. Yes, it’s a lot of chicken.
Nut free–that’s hard. My daughter has Kind bars and fruit leather (not sure that’s the current word for it) for her boys. I’m not sure how healthy it is. My Mari would revolt against a cone of any kind. It looks miserable!
omg! I just wrote a post like this about cooper. maybe we can talk snacks on our call lol
Oh my goodness, that’s a lot to ask for a neutering! Our male cats didn’t get cones after the procedure. They got about 3 days of pain drops and slept a lot. I don’t remember licking being an issue. But after the 3 days, they were good to go, as if nothing ever happened. They’re tough!
I’m making some vegetable beef soup today. Yummy!
I didn’t manage to have Lucy wear her ridiculously named Elizabethan collar when she was fixed either. For her surgery I got an inflatable doughnut, which worked much better, but it really depends on your pet’s physiology. Having pets who are recovering is just frigging miserable.
I have birria in the freezer too! Are we back in sync?
As much as I desperately miss my kids, I do not miss trying to figure out how to feed them appropriately. I can’t do it for myself, what good was I going to be at managing it for someone else?
We had dinner with my parents last night – chicken my dad did on the spit. Tonight we’re barbecuing steaks. I have a short rib to cook tomorrow – hmm, wonder if my iron is low?
Poor Leo.
Snacks and food in general for school is so hard. My kids don’t like to take things in thermoses because they don’t like lukewarm food, and neither wants to use the microwaves. It’s a whole thing!!!!!
We do a fruit or veggie, but sometimes that’s a squeeze pouch. They like cucumber and mini carrots…okay. And grapes or berries are it for fruit. Apples don’t travel well sitting in a lunchbox it seems.
They’ll mostly take sandwiches and snacks 🙁 I did make up some banana bread today and snuck in flaxseed and greatly reduced the sugar, so that will be dessert for a while!
I took the cone off of Rex when I could keep an eye on him as well. He had such a hard time eating and drinking with it, not to mention it was huge and kept knocking into everything. He could barely squeeze into the car, never mind his crate. Two weeks is not a long time but my god, it is forever when you have to keep your pet “calm” and “coned.”
Pre-sports snacks are always tough – good luck!
The cones of shame (as we call them) are the WORST! They love jamming them into the back of legs and pretending it’s an accident. But we all know the truth.
And beef birria! Now there is exactly what I needed to know for this week… going on my list!
Oh my gosh, that photo of Leo with his ‘elizabethan collar’ is everything. Did the vet person actually use that phrase to refer to it and keep a straight face? We all know that is a cone of shame! But kudos to them for coming up with a clever term for it. I hope Leo can ditch it soon. When Oscar got fixed she did not need to wear a cone at all! That was 10 years ago so my memory is vague but her recovery was not bad luckily.
I made the shawarma sheet pan dish with chicken tonight but we did not make the sauce because I did not want to track down tahini (or ask Phil to). We aren’t big sauce people. I did suggest he could put hummus on his if he wanted a sauce and he skipped it and still really liked it. I also made a corn chowder last night since sweet corn is in season. We will grill brats for dinner when my MIL is here to help watch Taco this week. And I am having Greek salads with grilled chicken for lunches! I am trying to get back on track with making salads for my work lunches.
When we got our current cats, they had been spayed and neutered two days prior and we weren’t given any special instructions about care. They didn’t wear cones and everything was fine. Similar story back in 2003, when we adopted two male kittens, though they were neutered after we got them and were older at the time of the surgery (4 months v. 2 months). I do remember one of them bled after some active play, but how do you stop a kitten from playing?
We had a picnic for Labor Day yesterday and I made a fig cake that kind of reminded me of your plum torte. The figs were sunken into the batter the same way. I forgot to put in the eggs, but it came out okay anyway. Maybe someday I will try it with the eggs to see what the difference is.
Does she like yogurt drinks? The Oikos ones with protein are great, and I send it in a frozen Packit bag to keep it cold.
Protein snacks that don’t have nuts and don’t have to be refrigerated….I wish there were more! I tell my kids that if it has 5g protein or more per serving, it counts. They sometimes eat: dehydrated peas (sort of like chips), yogurt pouches (go go squeeze doesn’t have to be cold), “moon cheese,” and are recently into Lenny and Larry’s pretzels. All of them are so much more expensive than regular carb only snack food. Sometimes they like Kodiak s’mores granola bars or Clif kids protein bars. It is a constant struggle!
I haven’t read all of the comments, so don’t know if anyone else has suggested this, but have you tried a donut rather than a cone? They sell them at pet supply places. We got one for Mulder when we got him (RIGHT after his neutering surgery) and it was SO much better than a cone. Just something to look into and obsess over. Ours was inflatable, and we kept it for future use.
Oh, kitty in the collar pondering what he did to deserve that. Too funny. I made bbq chicken in the crockpot. First time. It was fine, but I did a recipe with Italian dressing and maybe I do just the basic one next time. Coach didn’t think it was sweet enough. Hmm. I’ve been leaning into turkey meat tacos and thank goodness for grilling season, because that’s Coach’s job.
My mom’s kitten is getting that little procedure done in a few weeks, and I can only imagine how he is going to respond. The last kitten, a female, was literally scaling the walls within 2 days, so … hopefully Snoopy is much more chill 🙂
Birria! We just tried this for the first time last week and fell in love with the flavoring. I’ve got some ribs in the freezer that I’m planning to slow cook with birria one day when it’s a little bit cooler.
Oh little Leo. You are doing so well! I’ve watched my mom go through this process with Chip and Lucy, but I adopted my cats after they got spayed. THANK GOD. That recovery process would be so tough!
OH POOR LEO!!! He looks so sad in his collar. When our older cat had to have a collar, she figured out a way to turn it inside out (making it useless). Well- I hope he doesn’t have to have it much longer. I’m realizing how lucky we are that Foxy was neutered before we got him!!!
I think I’ve cooked twice this week, with leftovers happening twice. We kind of have a similar situation with after school rehearsals and a football game this week, so that’s one takeout meal for her. For snack suggestions- maybe a nut-free protein bar? My daughter does bring either nuts or a protein bar sometimes.
Oh, my, poor Leo. (I keep using his ‘other’ name in my head…must..break…habit…) I hope you all survived the 2 weeks, since this comment is ridiculously late. And I also hope you figured out what snacks to send with Carla. I had to laugh, I clicked on the cheese balls link to see what they were, thinking they might be something like this throwback from the 80s (yes, I’m old; see Slide #1: https://www.msn.com/en-us/foodanddrink/foodnews/12-discontinued-80s-snacks-that-need-to-make-a-comeback/ss-AA1xk9ep). Since they use heirloom corn and are marked GF, um, no, they are not the same. 😉
(Note: the only other snack I actually know on that list is Jell-O pudding pops, LOL.)