On Friday morning, I delivered Kali to our vet in Hawaii Kai before dawn. Literally. She had a long-planned appointment for dental surgery. It was somewhat exploratory, since Kali has apparently resisted Dr. Ann Sakamoto’s previous attempts to open her mouth for a close examination. What little she had been able to see wasn’t good.

Kali was home by about 3 p.m., and what she really wanted at that point was lots of cuddles and lovies from us. The photo was taken shortly after we got back from the vet.

How did it go? The short version is that our checking account took a big hit, and Kali was sent home with the bill, a few pain pills which I doubt I’ll be able to give her, and a tiny plastic baggie with the eight teeth that had to be extracted. She was a bit woozy when she first got home, but otherwise seems fine.

Yesterday’s losses, combined with teeth that were already missing, left Kali running near empty on the tooth front. In the long run, that’s not really a big deal. Duke spent most of a decade without any teeth, and it didn’t slow down his appetite for dry kibbles. One of the web sites I consulted made the point that cats teeth are designed for killing and tearing off bit-size bits of food, and not for chewing. And Kali doesn’t have to do any real hunting any more, so she should do fine even without the benefit of a full complement of teeth.

But we have an immediate problem to deal with. Since we adopted Kali, she has exclusively eaten dry food. Her choice. I’ve tried, without success, to interest her in canned food that all of the cats we’ve ever had would be wild about. Kali barely sniffs in the direction of the dish before walking away without showing the barest degree of interest.

Usually that’s no problem. But after this rather extensive bit of dental surgery, Dr. Sakamoto advised that Kali should eat wet food for two weeks. She worries that her regular dry kibble diet risks tearing the sutures now holding her gums together while healing.

Much easier said than done!!

Can we get her interested in wet food? I seriously don’t know. We’re in uncharted territory. How is it possible a cat that survived on her own for years in a cat colony at the top of Aiea Heights learned to be so picky about her food? We’ve lived with at least 20 cats over the last half-century, and have never had another that wouldn’t come running and chow down at the sound of a can being opened.

And if she doesn’t warm up to wet food, I won’t be able to sneak in the pain meds she is supposed to get for several days. So she’ll be hungry and hurting.

Well, as predicted, she has resisted all suggestions of wet cat food so far, dry or freshly prepared.

I’m sure her mouth hurts, and those pills could help. But there’s no way to “pill” this cat unless the pill sneaks in via a nice bowl of wet cat food, and that isn’t happening. So she has to tough it out.

On Friday evening, the same day as the surgery, she hopped up into bed as soon as I was getting ready to read myself to sleep. As you can see, except for the food dilemma, she looks fine and she was acting relatively normally, just in need of a little extra reassurance.

I plan on trying couple of tastes people have suggested, including raw salmon and raw ground beef. If she eats any of it, fine. If not, we’ll eat it.

And, in the meantime, I’m soaking the dry kibbles she likes in hot water. Eventually they soften up. She’s eaten perhaps half of her normal amount, but that’s plenty to keep her going until her mouth starts to recover from the surgery.

And that, friends, is where we stand at this point, with the 4-month anniversary of her adoption coming up in just a few days.