Spayed kitty issues

Well my little girl came back from the vet two days ago. She was spayed and it was an emergency as she developped pyometra (if you need an extra reason to spay early, that's the one.) She is 10 months old.

She was fine when we brought her home, and although she just had surgery, she was jumping up and down and was - as always - constantly begging for food.

She won't drink water, though. And today, her energy level seemed low. She'd come out to eat, explore a bit and head back to her cage for a nap.

I've never cared for a recently spayed cat by myself, much less one that was sick. Is that normal?


She hates the collar. But she nimbles through the baby jacket, so...

Oh and also, I noticed a hard bump under the surgical site. The suture itself seems dry and healthy, but there is a bump there.

I don't wanna harass my vet for no reason

The bump is normal---it's the inside stitches/scar tissue. It can get kinda big as the tissue heals, but as long as it's not angry hot red or seeping pus, it's fine.

I've never used a collar on a recently spayed cat. Does she mess with her incision site? I don't worry about normal grooming/licking, you only have to worry if she licks too much or tries to pull the stitches out. I've only had one girl try to pull her stitches. So give her a little time without the collar, watch her carefully, and see how it goes.

It's pretty normal for a cat to have no appetite for a day or two, and they probably gave her fluids during surgery so she might not be thirsty for awhile. But if she's not back to normal after 2 days you should call the vet.

If you do take the collar watch her very carefully.  I tried to do this with one of mine and she would not leave her stitches alone even if I was sitting right next to her.  She had to keep the cone on until she had her stitches removed.  If the cone is making it hard for her to eat feed her on a large flat plate.  I fed Starbuck on a plate I would use to serve myself dinner and it made it much easier to eat.  She was not able to eat out of a bowl with the cone.

Starbuck was the only female I have ever had that wound up with an infected spay site.  The really odd thing was her infection set in after the stitches were actually removed.  The whole area turned an angry bright red and turned very puffy.  She did not have any puss discharge.  I took her back to the vet right away.  The vet drained the infection and put her on antibiotics.  She healed quickly after this.  My point is just keep an eye on the appearance of the area and if anything does happen just take her in for treatment quickly. Even if an infection does happen it is a very treatable issue.

She freaking removed her cone herself today. Put it back tighter. Day 7 after spay and this is what the site looks like:


Some of the red is a bit of blood because she licked off her scabs.

Sent picture to vet. They are not impressed. We're picking up a disinfecting kit tomorrow morning (they are leaving it in their mailbox because they are off Wednesday and Thursday).

Anyone got an incision site looking like this and it turned out ok?

EDIT: And the stupid person who was in charge of giving her her meds forgot this morning's antibiotic dose. Two hours left until the next one so I can't just give it to her.

Please help. I don't want to spam but I am very, very scared.  

That's so odd, I was going to say it didn't look that bad! Pea-Pea's looked bigger and uglier than that, and there was nothing wrong with it, just normal healing. How is she acting otherwise, is she acting like it's bothering her at all?

She is eating, drinking and playing normally, but I honestly wouldn't count on that. She had raging pyometra (white cell count so off the charts that the vet's machines couldn't interpret it) and still didn't act like anything was wrong. Good thing she was oozing pus, that was the only way we ended up knowing about it.

Because of that, anything that appears slightly out of the ordinary freaks me out; she was sick and she never let us know  

But thank you, I'll sleep better tonight knowing your Pea-Pea turned out fine!

When my kitten's incision got infected it looked a lot worse than that.  Starbuck was still acting like a normal kitten when she had her infection.   It looks like she irritated it when the cone came off.  Are the stitches still intact?  Is anything yellow or smelly oozing out of the incision?

It is good that you were able to show the vet a picture and will be getting the disinfecting kit.  If the bleeding gets worse or the incision becomes raised and angry red/oozes then I would contact the vet again.  Hopefully they will give you good directions with the kit.

I am under the impression that one of the middle stitches (5th from the top) is hanging on only one side now.

Other than that, it was a tad bloody because she licked the heck of her scabs (incision looked a lot better before her intervention). No smell, no yellow discharge (there was a transparent watery film over the incision, but it looks like its fading).

If only she could sit still.

Thank you so much!