I went to pick Charlie up late on Wednesday afternoon. He yowled piteously the whole way home; it was heartbreaking. He was obviously groggy and unhappy. He’d had a 24-hour opiate pain injection right before he left the vet; I was given a bunch of buprenex syringes to start the next day. The instructions were to rub it on his gums; he wasn’t supposed to swallow it but to absorb it through his mouth.
Charlie ate some dinner, though I had to hold it up for him, and then was mostly interested in sleeping. His wound was still seeping a little, so I was supposed to take him back to the vet on Friday and Monday to have it looked at. He mostly wanted to curl up in his little den, but several times tried to clamber up in my lap. I didn’t know whether it would be better or worse to try to help him!
On Wednesday night and Thursday, we shut Charlie in the small half bath while we were sleeping and let him out while we were awake. Unfortunately, as he got more awake, he started wanting to do more, and also started trying to work off his e-collar. I turned it around so that it faced down toward his body rather than up around his face, which seemed to settle him a bit.
Friday morning, I could tell that he had been bleeding a little, so I took him in to the vet early.