Wendy is being spayed tomorrow: any advice?

Hello everyone,

Wendy's first two ringworm cultures are negative so we can finally have her spayed. She's almost 6 months old, and healthy. She's an indoor cat, but I didn't want her to go into heat while we waited for those cultures. The first one took 34 days, not the 21 days they promised!

She is a sweet-natured but skittish feral kitten. She's making slow, steady progress at learning to enjoy being petted, etc. It hasn't been easy for her, since we've had to give her nasty medicine and treatments almost the whole time we've had her. She's had more evil-smelling lime-sulfur dips at the groomer than I care to count. (If I were her, I'd NEVER come near us. But Wendy is good-natured.)

I'm wondering if you have any advice that will help her with her surgery and recovery.

We're going to have her micro-chipped. Because she is young, I think she won't need the optional, expensive pre-op bloodwork our vet offers. Agree?

She will be staying overnight at the vet, which I think is good, as long as she doesn't freak out over being in a strange place.

My main concern is that this will be a major setback to her socialization. Also, she loves to play with her brother Possum, and we can't really separate them if we need to protect her stitches. This is a small apartment. I suppose we could shut one in the bathroom, but they'd both hate that.

Any thoughts or suggestions will be welcome!

Thanks!

My 6 month old kitten is getting altered on Jan 18th and I am getting the blood work anyway.
I rather be safe then sorry.
My Lucy almost died from being altered years ago.
That will set her back.
I used to save ferals and it was hard to gain there trust after they were altered.
It does depend on the cat also.

When I took Gumby in to be fixed, when she got back she was no problem - in fact she was probably more "tame" than when she left. It will really depend on the cat - some are used to home, and so relieved to be back in familiar territory that it doesn't much phase them. Some absolutely freak out.

As long as she doesn't mess with her stitches & doesn't play too hard with her brother - I let me recent surgery kitties back with those they are familiar with rather than confine them. I have, however, had to separate some in the past due to surgery complications.

I haven't had a cat fixed in a long time - all mine that have been fixed are fosters & have not had bloodwork done. I think that's a personal choice - I know with my small dog I had bloodwork done when she was spayed due to health concerns.

since stitches were mentioned, maybe ask the vet if they offer dissolving stitches or do they only offer the old-fashioned kind? ...i remember when penny got spayed, they gave her old-fashioned stitches without telling me there was another option. i wasn't upset at them or anything, i simply wished they told me as a courtesy.

Thanks for the tips!

Wendy is doing fine, the vet reports. She should be able to come home tomorrow. Her stitches are the dissolving kind, so she won't need to go back. They did not do the extra bloodwork.

I can't wait until she's home. It's funny how empty the house feels without her, even though she hides a lot and we have three other cats who are much more sociable.

It will be interesting to figure out how to keep her from wrestling with Possum. I hope she's not in the mood in the next couple of days and he understands.

She's so prety -I just saw her closeup on her cat page

Thank you! We agree that she's a beauty.

Lola's spay was pretty uneventful. We had the bloodwork done. She healed up really well, and had the dissolving type stitches. We had her in her own room for recovery so she wouldn't get into anything we didn't want and it limited what she could jump on post-op.

Lola came home the same day of her spay.