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Monday, March 16, 2009

Costly kitty

I came home from work the other day to find my son’s cat stoned out of his mind.
It’s not because he was running with the wrong crowd or anything, but because he just had some minor surgery.
A few days prior, something had bit him on the butt, just to the side of his tail on his haunches. I guess that’s what that area of a cat is called anyway. What do I know about animal anatomy, so to make my life easier I will refer to it as his butt.
Anyway, he came sauntering into the house one day with a cut on his butt and he would express his displeasure anytime someone would pet him and touch the affected area.
We decided we had better take the critter to the vet who informed us the wound had abscessed and he was in need of a medical procedure.
In other words, “Your cat is going to help pay for my vacation to Mexico.”
The vet figured it was a bite of some sort, which we suspected ourselves because it did not look like a scratch from a catfight.
It was likely a dog, but if you ask Gilbert the Wonder Cat, he would probably say it was a 900-pound grizzly bear, or a pack of coyotes or something.
I can just see him talking to his little cat friends.
“So there I was, my back to the fence staring down 12 mangy, flea-infested coyotes. The first one lunged and I took him out with one swing. I managed to lay a whoopin’ on 11 of the filthy dogs before No. 12 snuck up from behind and bit me on the butt. But don’t worry, I know what he looks like and one day, revenge shall be mine.”
Either way, something took a small chunk out of his hindquarters.
My wife called me at work and told of the woes of Gilbert and what needed to be done and when I walked in the door after work the first thing I saw was Junior’s cat with a white cone around his neck, a shaved butt and 10 stitches.
That’s more stitches than even I have had at once. The most stitches I have ever received at one time is seven. That was in my pinky finger when I accidentally chopped it a little bit with a hedge trimmer, but the story of attacking yard maintenance equipment is to be told another day.
Because of the surgery, Gilbert had to be knocked out and was still rather buzzed at the end of the day.
When I came home, he was sitting in a half-crouch looking at the floor. He was just sitting and staring.
I could almost hear him singing, “Lucy in the skyyyy with diiiaaaamonds.”
He would look at his paw and go, “Wow man, that is like my paw. My claws go out, my claws go in, that is soooo cool.”
He would walk around for a few seconds in a half crouch before stopping to stare at the floor some more. He spent a good 15 minutes looking at a toy that was left lying on the ground.
Maybe he was trying to communicate with it, who knows.
Once the drugs began to wear off, the cone started to become an irritant. He tried to shake his head until it came off, but soon realized it was futile.
That does not mean he was pleased with his new fashion accessory and he made some unique meowing noises that I can only assume is a cat version of swearing.
Along with the stitches and the bald patch on his butt where the vet had to shave him, was a small rubber tube.
I looked at the tube for a second and asked my wife, who is a nurse, what the tube thing was for.
“Oh, he needs that to drain the abscess,” was her matter-of-fact reply.
“Wait. Stop. Hold it. Whoa. Whoa. Whooooaaaaa. Did you just say it was to drain the abscess?”
“Yes, the abscess has to drain so it will heal properly.”
“OK, let me get this straight. This fur ball is going to be walking around the house draining abscess goop all over my home. That is disgusting.”
I had visions of him walking across the floor and it looking like a giant snail had just crossed the room.
My medically knowledgeable wife explained there would not be very much drainage and that the tube had to be cleaned daily.
That is definitely a medical procedure and seeing as how she is trained medical personnel…
I can barely handle looking at the tube sticking out of him, so the odds of me being able to clean it are pretty slim to say the least.
“It doesn’t bother me at all,” said the missus before going into one of her medical stories that make me queasy just to think about.
“There was this one guy who had nine drain tubes in his abdomen and he…”
At this point in our conversation I stuck my fingers in my ears and said “la-la-la-la” until she got the idea and stopped talking about it.
Gilbert will get the drain taken out in about a week, but the stitches have to be in for two weeks, which means he has to wear the cone for another 10 days or so and he is not allowed outside until the stitches come out.
Mind you looking the way he does that is probably for the best because cats can be cruel and they would all just point and laugh.
shoenews@shaw.ca

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