An Unhappy Tabby
A couple of days ago we noticed an odd bump on Corny‘s back. I didn’t think much of it, though it was odd. Anyway, the next day it was bigger, and he’d licked all the fur off that one spot, so I knew it was time to do something about it. It looked like a wound underneath, there was a cut on the skin and some puss coming out of it. Yay, an abscess I figured (correctly), as my parents cat has had them a few times in his life. Corny probably got in a fight with a neighbor cat or something.
So we ran him down to the vet that evening, and the doc took him, noticed that the scratching he was doing on his ears was something that would be good to look at (another thing that I’d been avoiding dealing with), and took him overnight.
When we got him back today (well, Firefly got him this morning to be exact) he was a very unimpressed cat. Not only did he get his ears cleaned out (infection and mites) but his abscess was far worse than the original estimate. Instead of the expected 2 or 3 stitches and small patch of shaved fur, fully a quarter of my favorite original ArcterCat is shaved, and he has 14 stitches down his side. Apparently the doc took a lot of “stuff” out 🙁 He did leave me most of a cat though. The wound also has a drain in it, and the poor guy has a cone on his head, completing the insult. See a most unimpressed cat below…

Firefly kept him in locked in the bathroom for a bit to keep him out of trouble. He was in there mostly sitting on a blanket feeling sorry for himself, and unable to eat like a normal cat (anyone whose had a cat in that situation knows what I mean about them pushing their food around the floor with the bottom of the cone). After a bit though he indicated he wanted to come out by knocking something over, and then proceeded to hide in the back corner of the basement for a bit. After about 5 minutes he was back to being… well, corny. Came up onto his favorite chair beside me and flopped down, and happily let me scritch him while I wrote this. It’s bedtime now, and I’m not sure how he’s going to accomplish his standard “bump forehead against human chin” routine, I’m sure he’ll figure something out though. Oh, and I’ll bet the twice daily ear stuff and once daily antibiotics for his infection will be fun too!
Glad he’s ok though.
Aawwww poor Corny!! I’m glad he’s okay too. I’m sure the injury to his pride is worse than the original injury itself, at least in his eyes 😉 But he’ll get over both (even if he doesn’t believe it!)
what Keth said. though I’m sure Corny would disagree, dignity is somewhat overrated because ‘indignity’ beats ‘dead’. HUGS to you and Andrea, and scritches to all the animals, especially Corny
Thanks guys. He’s far more up and around than Rex was when he came back freom the vet… he was pretty much convinced that the world was horrible. Course he had had ear and eye surgery, and had the cone. Corny only had a half day of moping around before coming to recieve hugs and scritches. Course, he’s still not happy, and as you say, that beats dead 🙂
I’ll pass on pets and good thoughts when I get back tonight.
Heidegger had the same drain put in him — but we had to clean it out with a syringe daily to prevent infection. 😛
Glad to hear Corny’s up and around again though!