Spaying Cheyenne

July 18, 2006

Spaying Cheyenne

In the late spring of 1999, I bought a kitten. We had just recently moved to Kherson, Ukraine, found a nice flat and had gotten all settled in. I have almost always had at least one cat, and for the past few years I’d had three. I missed having a little soft furry live creature running around the house, scratching the furniture, leaving hair everywhere and purring quietly in my lap whenever I sat down. I asked around with the question, what is the best way to get a healthy kitten here in Ukraine? Within just a couple days I learned that one of the women in one of the Bible studies had a female cat that had recently had a litter and she was trying to find homes for all of them. I knew Constantinovna and jumped at the chance of getting a kitten that I knew would be clean and healthy.

One of the men in the Bible study, Vyechislav Petrovich, was an English teacher at a local institute. He volunteered to go with us when I went to pick out my kitten, and translate as needed. On the appointed day we set out together – my husband, Vyechislav and me. We climbed nine floors up to Constantinovna’s flat, rang her bell and she let us in. Within a few seconds I saw the mother cat come out into the hall to inspect the visitors. Following her were two white kittens, chasing each other, rolling over each other in rough and tumble play. Constantinovna informed us that these were the last two kittens left and I could have my choice.

I was disappointed. In my mind I had been hoping for a nice orange cat, or maybe a beautiful black and white cat. Last choice would be a gray tabby. But white? I did not really want a white cat. I wanted color! So, I looked the kittens over carefully. Well, as carefully as you can look over kittens that are chasing each other wildly through the living room, under chairs, up the curtains, leaping from bookcase to table, all in a mad dash of incredible energy. As I sat quietly in a chair watching them, they dashed under the chair between my feet. I realized that one of the sisters was completely white, the other had little drops of color splattered here and there, plus she had a grayish tail.

I reached down as the chaser chased the chasee out from nder my chair and grabbed her. And promptly got bit and scratched for my trouble. Ouch! I dropped her quickly and watched her race away. So much energy! But I liked her. So, I chose my kitten simply because she had a few splashes of color splattered here and there on her beautiful white coat, and because she was full of spunk. Little did I know what I was in for!

Constantinovna caught her as she raced by and quickly shoved her into a lidded basket that I had brought along. Yowling immediately commenced. I asked Vyechislav how much I should pay Constantinovna for the kitten and he mentioned a sum that worked out roughly to one dollar American. Not bad, I thought. I said ok, and he responded by looking at the kitten and saying, “You are a lucky cat. You will live in a rich American home and be a rich American cat.” Actually, that made me angry inside – which I am sure he intended (Vyechislav and I have never gotten along very well.) We called a taxi, said our goodbyes and started the journey back down the nine flights of stairs (very few elevators were in working condition in those days).

A few years earlier while I had been working at a library, I read a book about a cat named Polar Bear. The author of the book claimed that cats choose their own names, and I have a tendency to agree. We can think – the next time I get a cat, I’ll name it such and such. But when the next time comes, such and such just does not fit and some name I’ve never considered comes to mind instead. That was the way it was with this kitten. We brought her home, let her loose to explore her new home and I watched her carefully to see how she would respond. I can’t remember what I had planned to name her, but within a few hours, she had chosen her name. Cheyenne Little Bug. Cheyenne because she is so fierce and untamable. Little Bug because she was so little at the time, and remains a smallish cat today. Of course I have all sorts of nicknames for her now, but she remains Cheyenne Little Bug.

Cheyenne turned out to be the most unfriendly kitten I have ever met. Mel would pick her up and she would immediately bite him. He’d hold her in his big hand, fingers wrapped around her body, in a grip that if he chose, could squash her to death in an instant, and she would immediately lay back her ears, squint her eyes at him and sink her teeth into the space between his thumb and fingers. I have never had a kitten before who drew so much blood, scratching in play as well as in anger and “don’t touch me!” commands.

It was touch and go at the beginning. Mel did not like her at all, but I fell in love with her. Maybe I saw her as a challenge. I was struggling with living here in Ukraine, fighting feelings of defeat all the time over Russian language learning, going through culture shock, and so forth. A cat is a cat is a cat – all over the world. I just happened to choose a really super unfriendly one – but I saw that as a challenge! I would win her love and affection. Eventually. I was sure of it.

When Cheyenne turned 8 months old, I knew it was time to think bout getting her spayed. The last thing we wanted was a batch of kittens and we sure didn’t want her coming into heat all the time. So, once again I started asking around about vets and getting her spayed. My brother is a veterinarian. We know a couple others vets in Colorado. My family has always had animals and they have always been spayed or neutered. I am a firm believer in cat and dog population control, especially now after seeing all of the poor homeless cats and dogs that wander the streets here, most in some state of starvation and disease. What a shock it was to learn that spaying and neutering is not looked upon with favor here at all. In fact, I had more than one person tell me it was wrong to take away an animals right to the pleasure of sex. I asked about all the kittens and puppies, and got either “drown them” responses, or shrugs of “so what?” Very few people seemed to get the connection that an animal is actually happier and healthier when they are not out searching for a mate, fighting over mating, or bearing litter after litter of babies. Finally someone told us where to find a vet that might do the operation.

I talked to my translator, Sergei B. Sergei was one of the one’s who thought it was wrong, but agreed that he would help me. We visited the vet and I was pleased to see that this man seemed to actually care about the animals. We set up an appointment. Unfortunately, it just so happened that the appointment was for the day before we left for vacation – so it meant that Cheyenne would be cared for by the person who house sat for us while we were gone. But – I was afraid that this person would let her out to mate if we didn’t get her spayed first. So, I went ahead and made the appointment.

The day of the operation arrived. I was a nervous wreck. I had taken several animals in to vets for this procedure over the years and really never thought too much about it before. But I knew a bit about Ukrainian medicine for people and could not even start to believe that it would be better for animals. I knew that medicines were in short supply. Equipment was old and in poor repair. The thought kept going through my mind – would Cheyenne survive? Oh yes, I was very nervous. I didn’t realize HOW nervous and upset inside I was.

It is a custom here to take off your shoes when you enter a home. So, after catching Cheyenne and stuffing her into the lidded basket again, I found my shoes and put them on, and went out to meet Sergei at the taxi.

We arrived at the vet’s office and they took my cat away into the back recesses of the building. The lights were low, the building was old, everything needed a fresh coat of paint, it smelled like animal pee. I sat down in the waiting room on a bench. Sergei sat beside me.

We waited. And we waited. And we waited some more. I got up and paced. I sat down and went through my purse. I remember doing all of these things, even though this happened over 7 years ago! I got up and paced again. And I wondered to myself, “What are they doing in there? Why is it taking so long? What is wrong with my shoe that it is bothering me so much? Where is my cat? What are they doing to her? Will she live? What is wrong with my foot?”

Finally, almost wringing my hands in nervousness, I yanked my shoe off to see what was wrong with it that it was bothering my foot so much. These were black, high-top walking shoes – sports shoes. I reached inside the shoe to see if the pad at the bottom was curled up or something – and felt something hard.

I am sure Sergei thought I was absolutely crazy. I pulled out a Bic pen. One of the long white ones that has a blue cap, but the cap was off. I started laughing, almost hysterically. I could not believe I had been walking around with a Bic pen in my shoe! I thought to myself, “Cindie – you are way too stressed out over this!” Sergei asked me – “Was that pen IN your shoe??” And all I could do was laugh. I finally told him, yes, it was. He just shook his head and stared at me like I was some kind of crazy American, and he would never understand Americans, no matter how many of us he ever met.

I realized that my shoe had been sitting underneath the phone shelf before I put it on. On that shelf I also kept some pens and paper for writing down messages. One of the pens had apparently rolled off into my shoe. In my nervousness I had not felt it when I put the shoe on. Laughing as I did helped to break the nervous state I was in, but I never did really relax.

Finally, after about two hours or longer, the vet came out into the waiting room and told me he was finished. I was to follow him into the operating room. This was something I had never done before….what was going on? We went across a hall, he opened a door and led me into an old fashioned medical room. All of the equipment was old, everything needed to be painted – there were actually rust spots on some of the equipment, it was so old. There lying on the operating table was Cheyenne. She was on her back, her eyes half open, tongue hanging out the side of her mouth, legs splayed out and tied to the four corners of the table by what looked to be strips of torn white sheets. Her belly had been cut and now had several black stitches and was painted with a bright green antiseptic of some sort. I was almost frozen into immobility. I had helped my brother spay and neuter several dogs and cats one time – and they had never looked quite like this… The vet spoke, Sergei translated. I was instructed to look at the little pile of pink stuff sitting on one corner of the table. The vet explained that this was her uterus. He was showing me proof that he had actually done what I had brought her in for, not just cut her open and sewed her back up. I acknowledged that I saw it, somewhat in fascination. This was all so unexpected.

He instructed me to go back out to the waiting room. Always before, my cats had spent the night at the vet. But this time, he brought her back out to me, still asleep, in her basket. I looked inside and now she had a huge cotton pad against her belly, tied onto her with a big white strip of cloth tied around her middle with a huge knot on her back. I was instructed to keep the wound covered for several days, to buy two or three different kinds of antibiotics and some more of the green stuff and apply it several times a day.

So, I took Cheyenne home while she was still asleep. No one told me that she would go crazy when she started coming out of the anesthesia! I had put her in a box beside the radiator to keep her warm, but when she started to wake up – she went wild. Drunk wild. She ran and hid under the bed, dragging her bandage behind her. Finally, when she was recovered enough to not wobble and fall over any more as she tried to escape me, I was able to pull the bandage off. I never put it back on, just let her be.

When we left, I gave instruction to the house sitter on what to do with her. Leave her alone. Leave her totally alone. Let her recover on her own – cats are very good at that. Don’t try and doctor her – you’ll lose an arm and possibly a leg, too, in the process!

Sure enough, when we returned two weeks later, Cheyenne was fine. I never took her back to the vet to have the stitches removed. I checked her out – her fur had mostly regrown and all but two of the stitches were gone – she’d removed the others herself. I took a tiny pair of scissors and cut the other two and pulled them out. She was fine, healthy and very glad to see us again.

Three or four months later, she came into heat again.

For the next two and a half years she came into heat regularly. I asked my mother to ask the vet she takes her dogs and cats to what was going on. He responded that apparently the vet here had not taken out all of her ovaries, had possibly left one in or part of one. All I knew was that I could not take her back in for another operation and we could not breed her since she had no uterus. All we could do was listen to her yowl. And yowl. And yowl. All night long, for several weeks at a time. I thought Mel was going to go crazy. I was worried about bothering the neighbors. Sigh. Cheyenne was miserable during those times. BUT she was also friendly during those times and would let me pet her and hold her!!! Ah – that was nice.

That is the story of spaying Cheyenne. I hope to never go through such an experience again. She is still not a friendly cat, but as she gets older now, she does want more love and attention – just on HER terms, not mine.

I still have those black shoes and wear them occasionally in the winter. Every time I wear them I think about that Bic pen!