Oh no, Cow's collar came off!!

Yesterday, we went out for about 2 hours and when we came home, I saw Cow sitting happily against the grille...with his e-collar off!!

Oh my gosh!!!

No time to waste!

I got inside the room, found the e-collar on the floor beside the back grille, put it on Cow and checked his eye. I know the vet told me that if I can still see the third eyelid (a flap) through the corner of his stitched up eye, that means the stitches are intact, but if I can see his eyeball, it means the stitches have come off.

I checked. It looked like the flap is still there, but I wasn't going to take any chances. There was always a black scab on his eye, but now the scab had fallen off. This got me worried.

So, off we went to the vet's.

Luckily traffic was light, being a Sunday.

At the clinic, the vet (who did the operation) checked and assured me the stitches were still intact.

What a relief!!

Cow was very calm through it all.

I suppose a small blessing in disguise is that in those 2 hours (or so), he got to groom himself to his satisfaction. He must have rubbed off the black scab too. At the clinic, I could see that there is a stitch where the scab used to be. This stitch is still there.

The vet explained that there are actually only two stitches in this operation.



The higher one is the stitch that holds the third eyelid (pulled to cover the entire eye). The lower one is the stitch that keeps the eye closed. Just two stitches.

And two Tuesdays from now, which is 3 weeks after the surgery, these 2 stitches will be removed (no sedation needed). And the vet will examine the ulcer and see how much it has healed.

Healing normally takes place in about 10 days, but to be sure, the usual period of closing the eye is 21 days. In some cases, it heals; in others, it may not. Unfortunately, non-healing corneal ulcers in cats is quite common, the vet said.

We are praying very hard that Cow's ulcer will heal.

There are 8 more days to go. We've already passed the halfway mark.



We don't think Cow intentionally took off his e-collar as we feel he has accepted it and come to terms with it. He also never struggled with it. Perhaps the collar got stuck at the grille and it came off on its own.

Let's hope no other mishap happens...just 8 more days. I am only going off to work daily and not anywhere else so that I can spend as much time at home as possible.

Praying hard....