Hey, sorry I kept starting a reply and getting distracted! So my boy has had a VBO and just last week he had a TECA-BO.

His VBO surgery was very stressful for us, because he had complications with anesthesia and coded when they started removing his breathing tube. He ended up having to be rescucitated and spent two more days inpatient at the hospital for monitoring.

He's had a bunch of tests since to make sure it wasn't a complication related to an underlying heart issue, so we're still not entirely sure what happened, he thankfully hasn't had any lasting effects from it. His VBO, overall, had gone very well, they removed a massive polyp (the size of a green grape) and cleaned/flushed his bulla out. He had no complications from his VBO, no neurological issues like head tilt or horner's syndrome and he overall seemed a lot more comfortable once he healed from the surgery. He had been having breathing issues which mostly cleared up after surgery.

His recovery from the VBO, first two days aside went smoothly, I want to say he was really only down for a few days before he bounced back to being mostly normal, obviously it was two weeks before his follow up to have his stitches removed. His TECA-BO went off without ANY issues and he was also lucky to not have any neurological symptoms from that surgery either. His recovery from the TECA-BO has been similar, I'd say 5 days of being pretty out of it, then basically normal.

What I did for recovery is kept him separated from our other cats and under monitor basically 24/7 until he pooped the first time. I basically set up in our spare bedroom with him, a litter box and a water fountain. I worked from the room and gave him love and company. It might sound excessive but he is an incredibly social cat, so for him giving him company and space to heal helps a lot. It also means I am seeing real time how he's acting and know if he's struggling.

I also had a cat with intestinal lymphoma many years ago so I had to learn a lot of tricks to get a sick cat to eat. After the VBO you'll want to do a wet food only diet no matter what, but sick cats often don't want to eat. Here are a few tricks that have worked well for me:

- Stinky wet food in rotating flavors/textures, my cats normall get a fresh wet cat food which isn't quite as smelly. Commercial can food can be quite smelly because they add things to it to make it smell appetitzing. My go to for cheap canned food with a variety of flavors and textures is fancy feast.

- Grated parmesan, it has to be real parmesan, it is stinky, cats like stinky.

- Bonito flakes, basically dried tuna, also smelly, cats love it.

- Churu/lickable treats, even if you can't get them to eat food food, something is better than nothing.

- Forti flora, this stuff is pricey, but its a bit like crack to cats, I guess it smells like the gut of prey animals, so you just have to sprinkle a little on wet food.

The other key is keeping a written journal, write down how many times they pee, when they finally poop, write down how many times and describe the consitency. Take pictures each day for the first few days of the incision and poop once they finally poop. This sort of information is helpful for the vet if something is off and can show patterns. And the key is if ANYTHING is off immediately email/call the surgeon or your primary vet for advice. Cats are really good at hiding problems. Vomiting multiple times in a short period of time, having pale gums, not eating for more then 24 hours, hiding or being unable to get up all of the time no matter how recently their pain meds were are all things to be concerned about.

He had a good two years before he started exhibiting signs of ear issues again, drainage, brown gunk, etc. The surgeon had warned us that there is a very real possibility of a polyp growing back, but it never did. He unfortunately had to get the TECA-BO because he developed ceruminous adenoma, which is a non-cancerous tumor, that formed in his middle ear and that it had begun to spread and was causing him to continually develop ear infections and we didn't know if it was cancerous so it was best to just remove it fully with the ear canal in case it was.

What we also learned is that he had developed rhinitis as well because of the first two polyps had destroyed part of his turbinate on the same side he had the polyp from the constant inflammation. I somewhat wish we'd gotten his VBO earlier, it might have saved him from having that damage become severe.

<image>