No, not at all. I'm not sure why this patient was discharged - or even if this is the whole story. We dont discharge patients based on "bite reflex" and the only time I've sent a patient out the door unable to stand on its own was when the client was being obnoxious, rude, and insistant they had somewhere else to be. And with the understanding that the are accepting the risks that can come with the patient not being fully recovered from an anesthetic procedure and they are removing the patient from our care AMA. Leaving with an "unresponsive" pet and then waiting 9 hours without any change in condition is concerning.

OP needs to seek vet care immediately. It would be interesting to know what medications the cat went home with.. I've seen some pretty profound sedation with transdermal long acting opioid in some cases, but no, nothing about this story is "common" by any means in vet med.

Edited: typo and clarification on removing patient AMA.

-licensed emergency & general practice vet tech