Cat's ear hematoma and more lovely stuff

In my quest to bring you both good and bad things about pet owning, I give you a small tale about our cat, and a couple of her issues.
Skittles, was give to us by our daughter's friend in the fall 11 years ago.

First adventure at the vets: We had her about a month, when we noticed that she wasn't eating, or peeing (sorry about mentioning the p word again in my blog, but it's just something everyone does and has to do...a lot). We took her to the vet, and he felt her stomach and said it appeared she had something in here and it felt "crunchy". She was new, and small, but we had no choice but to get her into surgery. It turned out that she had eaten a candy cane, wrapper and all. The candy had gone through, but the cellophane wrapper had balled up and stuck in there. Once it was removed she was stitched up and just fine. Shows you that your pets will try and eat anything. Little cat. Big bill.


Second adventure at the vets: This was about two years ago. One day she seemed fine and the next, her ear had ballooned up. Off to the vet. We were told that it was an ear hematoma. She must have been shaking her head and ruptured some vessels in her ear. No ear mites or fleas, so we are not sure why. Once again...into surgery. The ear is drained, and because it had filled with fluid, the layers of her ear had separated and it had filled up like a hot water bottle. They cut the skin, and fit it back together and stitch it up, kind of like a quilt so the ear can heal and glue back together. The stitches stay for about 10 days. Then they take the stitches out. This may work in some cases, but in ours......no. The ear started to get fat again and in the end our cat's ear just wouldn't heal nicely. We could have tried again, but had no more money and our cat was just not a good patient. It's wrinkled and thick and she looks like an old alley cat, I don't think she cares.

My Dog's TPLO Surgery

I just brought our dog home from the hospital. She hurt her leg a few weeks ago and snapped one of the ligaments in her knee. This operation is pretty darned expensive, but we were told that especialy for a big dog like her, this is by far the best option for her. She's a 120 lb rotti/lab cross.
I am going to be sitting in this room with my dog a lot in the next while, making sure she doesn't chew out her stitches or do any jumping or running, she is confined to a limited space for the next couple of weeks. Putting her in a wire cage would be a good way to keep her confined, but we rescued her from a pretty nasty situation when she was a pup, and there is no way she will stay in one without causing herself more harm. I decided to keep a kind of journal for her and our daily experience.
I'll add pictures...some may be kind of gross, but maybe someone else would like to know what to expect if this happens to their pooch.

They shaved her whole leg, and while our baby is a tad overweight, her leg is quite swollen. We are told day 3 and 4 could be worse, but then it should get better. We have to apply cold (gel pack) to it 3 or 4 times a day for 10 minutes.

She is on Percocet for the first 5 days, also she is taking some other medication because when they shaved her leg they noticed that she has a skin condition that may make her itchy. (we didn't know that before)