Raffe undergoes surgery

In September of 2014, I introduced you to the newest long term resident of the kitten room, Raffe. I purchased him at a yard sale for $20. He looked a little sad then, and despite my attempts to fix his neck with chiropractic manipulation, he has looked sad every day since.

I checked to see if I could easily see the stitching because I knew I would have to be cutting that thread to get into him, I was lucky it fairly visible with a bit of pulling.

I gathered up a few supplies from my craft room and set to work. Yes, dental floss. It is generally much stronger than standard threads and a bit wider so it isn't as likely to cut through the fabric. The cat butt coaster came along so I didn't lose the needle.

Ripping the original seam was a bit easier than I thought it was going to be.

I was fairly certain about what I was going to find when I got in there, but I was still surprised that support for the neck was so thin considering the wire for the shoulders - and I'm assuming the hips

I attempted to straighten out the neck from the inside, but it was simply not happening. I finally gave up and pulled the wire out completely and was shocked to find it in such poor shape. I guess whoever owned this before had someone who hung off that neck on a regular occasion.  Fortunately, it was fairly easy to bend back into a straight form. Getting it back into the neck hole was a different story, I ended up having to bend it again to do it, but it seemed fairly easy to bend it back once it was in there.

This is where the floss comes into play. I took a random piece and ended up being lucky enough that it was long enough to close up the entire seam.

Tada!

Raffe is looking up these days and hopefully, that was enough that he will be for some time to come. If not, I'll pop the seam again and find a stronger piece of wire to help him out.  Part of me wants to get in there and fix his hips and shoulders, as he only can put three hooves on the ground at any one time, but I figured that was going to be a far riskier procedure and I didn't know if I could get him back together again. Maybe one day I'll see if some chiropractic manipulation will work for those, but I'm in no rush, and the kittens never seemed to care and climbed up him despite his bad hips.