So this is pretty much the overall feeling about today's feline-related events: Yuck. Poor Roscoe, in addition to losing weight and some other symptoms, he's been scratching at his head in random places for a loooong time. Not very hard, just, you know, I-have-an-itch-and-I-can't-get-rid-of-it scratching. Until yesterday, when he scratched so hard his little ear started bleeding. That's when we realized he might have something more than an itchy head. So I called a nearby vet (less than 2 miles from the house!) who let me bring him in at 4 pm on a Friday, saw him immediately, and found a long-standing ear infection. And when I say infection, I mean INFECTION.If you are easily grossed out, please skip the next paragraph. I am not easily grossed out, and what happened in that vet's office almost made me gag. No, it did make me gag. I just managed not to throw up. Barely. So, seriously. If you get grossed out, don't read it then complain to me that it's gross. I know it's gross. I lived it. And I've thoughtfully annotated the gross parts for you in red, so if you are gross-averse, don't read the parts after the red.
GROSS PART STARTS
The kindly veterinarian who saw us was the owner of the clinic, and he was soooo nice. Just really customer-service oriented, and you can tell he just loves the animals. The whole time he was working with Roscoe, he maintained a running dialogue. With Roscoe. Which I'm sure some people would consider crazy, but I happen to admire it. Hey, cats are people too. If you're going to be poking and prodding them, the least you can do is talk to them about it. So once he found that nasty, deep ear infection, he of course tried to clean it up by getting some of the muck out. (This is the gross part.) He puts the Q-tip in, and ook comes out. I mean, I'm sparing you the worst of it by just calling it "ook". He put some drops to help clean it in there, and again and again, removed more ook, much to Roscoe's displeasure. Then (here's the REALLY gross part) Roscoe decides to help and shakes his head really hard. Ook flew everywhere. I mean, ew. I want to gag again just writing this. And I seriously don't gag over anything. The poor vet tech, who was holding Roscoe down and is barely out of his teen years, got splattered. The vet got splattered. The table got splattered. Oddly, I, wearing a white t-shirt, somehow did not. I have never, ever, been so close to spontaneously throwing up in my life. Probably the combination of knowing that ook came out of my poor old kitty, and the fact of what that ook was made up of. I'll spare you all that description.
GROSS PART ENDS
So, sorry about that. I have a blog so I can express and overshare when I feel like it, and you have a close button (that little x at the top right corner) that you can exercise when you don't feel like reading it. :) And you can't say I didn't warn you.
I'm glad we're hopefully on the road to recovery with Mr. Roscoe now. I'm mostly just angry at myself for not intuitively knowing that my kitty repeatedly scratching at random places on the left side of his head meant there was a deep infection somewhere inside. I feel like a bad kitty mommy. But it's not like he hasn't been to the vet! That dang mobile vet...she claimed to give him a "full work-up" 2 weeks ago, (and I certainly paid for a full work up) so how did she miss a big honkin' ear infection that he's apparently had forever? I'm going to call her, and have her fax all of his test results to his new vet, and tell her she missed the ear infection. Being a non-confrontrational Libra, this will not be easy for me, but I think she needs to know that she missed something pretty obvious, and why I won't be calling her again.
Also, the new vet said that Roscoe's weight loss might be due to hypo- or hyper-thyroidism, can't remember which. He said that they get really really hungry (true), and eat a lot (also true) but continually lose weight (sadly, also true. He's down to 11 lbs from a robust 15 or so). So I'm very hopeful that with this vet, we can patch the ol' kitty back together and keep him well for more years to come.
Sigh. And this is only one of four cats. I have this to look forward to with Romeow, Frijol, and Boo-Boo. Rest assured, if they scratch more than twice in the same spot, they're getting rushed to the vet. The new, good vet.
Awe poor kitty!! how sad glad to hear that he is on the road to recovery. Also, check for diabetes my kitty has that. He was losing lots of weight, eating, drinking and going to the bathroom lots. I have to take my kitty back to the vet and I'm a bit scared.
ReplyDeleteYes, diabetes was our first thought, but water intake/output seems pretty normal and blood sugar was ok. So maybe this infection was affecting him this drastically? Or maybe it's the thyroid thing. Guess we'll find out in a few weeks. He's doing well though!
ReplyDeleteHyperthyroidism is common in older cats. Smokey has to take a pill every day that tells his thyroid to stop producing so much hormone. The alternative to the pill was radiation treatment (my mother had that done, to herself!) -- but that would mean Smokey would have to be in a strange place for at least a week...and then, since the radiation doesn't necessarily precisely target the right amount of thyroid, there is usually a need to supplement the thyroid with synthroid or take a smaller dose of what he's taking now.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, the worst part of the whole ordeal is finding someone to administer the medicine when I'm gone (he's good with me, but is nasty to everyone else as far as pilling is concerned). What I've finally done is to go to a compounding pharmacist who can make the medicine into a cat treat. It isn't cheap but not really expensive either, and I only do this when I'm going away somewhere.