Oscar's at the emergency clinic overnight

Ugh, fibreglass. Yeah, that can get itchy. I'm glad that's all it
probably turned out to be though and Oscar didn't need surgery.
Purrs for you to figure something out with the basement.
--
Britta
Purring is an automatic safety valve device for dealing with happiness
overflow.
Check out pictures of Vino at:
http://photos.yahoo.com/badwilson click on the Vino album


Monique Y. Mudama wrote:
I talked to the vet this morning. Apparently he decided last night,
when he finally got enough time to look at it properly, that it was
*not* an abscess. So he did clean the wound, but no
surgery/anesthesia required. That drastically reduced the cost, which
means that I can use the extra from my deposit to pay for ... leaving
her at the clinic today.

I'll probably need to pick her up tomorrow morning. I can't afford to
leave her there at $200 a day, but at least I know she'll be in an
enclosed area.

The vet's best lead is that there's some fiberglass that caused enough
irritation that Oscar started licking. The licking appears to be most
of the damage right now. The treatment for that is to leave the paw
exposed and wait for the irritant to work its way out, which means ...
e collar for Oscar. There's no way to get around it.

He looked at the irritant under the microscope and couldn't swear it
was fiberglass, but apparently that's the right size and there *is*
exposed insulation in the basement. I knew I should really do
something about that, but ... I never did.

Certainly I can't let her be in the basement anymore, not until I find
a way to block off the crawlspace or something. I need to figure out
if I can make the bedroom safe for a terrified cat with an e collar,
or if I need to put her in a bathroom.

On 2006-07-04, John F Eldredge penned:

I can certainly sympathize with poor Oscar. I have gotten
fiberglass fragments in my skin before; it itches madly, and there
is nothing you can do but wait for it to work its way out of the
skin. Fortunately, it generally doesn't penetrate very deeply, so
the itching will probably be gone within two or three days at the
most.

I don't remember if I've gotten fiberglass in my skin before, but I
know it's a horrible experience, and I just feel awful that I may have
inadvertently caused Oscar's trauma through negligence (not
proactively dealing with the insulation issue somehow). Dumb, dumb,
dumb!

Two or three days? I hope that's the case. Maybe the topical steroid
is to help with the itching more than anything. Unfortunately you
can't reason with a cat. I've tried telling her not to lick and
gently moving her when she does it, but I might as well tell the sun
not to shine.

--
monique, who spoils Oscar unmercifully

pictures: http://www.bounceswoosh.org/rpca

On 2006-07-04, badwilson penned:
Ugh, fibreglass. Yeah, that can get itchy. I'm glad that's all it
probably turned out to be though and Oscar didn't need surgery.
Purrs for you to figure something out with the basement.

I just wish I knew for sure. The vet said he looked at the debris
under the microscope, and it was the right size for fiberglass, but he
couldn't find any pictures of fiberglass under the microscope to
compare to.

--
monique, who spoils Oscar unmercifully

pictures: http://www.bounceswoosh.org/rpca

badwilson wrote:

I'm so sorry to hear about your and Oscar's ordeal. So was she licking
her paw then because she had somehow injured it? And the first vet
didn't notice? That seems odd. It must be a pretty bad abscess if she
has to get surgery for it. Vino's abscess seems very minor in
comparison. Many purrs for everything to go well and for Oscar's quick
recovery.

Actually, I was surprised that your vet did not treat Vino's
abscess the same way! Since cats tend to play rough with
one another, mine have had their share of abscesses from
"friendly fire" (so to speak). I have never encountered a
vet who did NOT anesthetize the cat, drain and stitch the
wound, and send him/her home with anti-biotics (but no
further treatment required by me).

On 2006-07-04 01:19:27 -0500, "Monique Y. Mudama" said:




So. Oscar is there now. It's midnight. There was another surgery
case there, so the estimate is that she will be done around 4am.
Because of the delay, they'll keep her till the morning with no
hospitalization charge. They won't call me unless something goes
wrong, so in theory I can sleep (hah).

They let me say good night to her, and also let me drive home for an
ancient (like, from when she was 6 months old) catnip pillow and a
sock for licking. I wasn't able to give them to her myself because
another surgery was being prepped when I got back. I'm hoping she'll
be tempted to lick the sock instead of her paw.

I'm strongly considering keeping Oscar there for a few days. They
mentioned needing to give her two other medicines (in addition to the
antibiotic? Not sure). I figure that she will stay cleaner, have
people to watch her better (tomorrow's a holiday, but I have to work the
rest of the week), and won't be able to get into trouble. Not to
mention that maybe they will cause her less trauma than I would, trying
to handle the paw or feed her the meds. And presumably she won't
require the e collar. That would be about $120 a day. With the
kitty-morphine they gave her (B-something, can't remember the name), she
was calm enough to even luv up on the vet techs.

Where is the abcess at? Is it her paw? I sure hope she is feeling
better soon. Please keep us posted.

I was just wondering if you could get some of that heat shrink plastic
to go over the exposed insulation area? not good for you guys to have
that exposed either.

Monique, a friendly lurker asked me to post this link for you and to stress
that you should give the dose in SMALL portions, giving Oscar a chance to
swallow. The entire dose at once can choke her, or be "spit" out.

http://www.maxshouse.com/Medicating_Your_Cat.htm


--

Hugs,

CatNipped

See all my masters at: http://www.PossiblePlaces.com/CatNipped/


"Monique Y. Mudama" wrote in message
...
Short version:

Oscar needs to get an abscess (sp?) removed/cleaned, so she will be
staying overnight at the emergency clinic. I am freaking out a bit,
but also extremely tired (and about freaking well finished with
stressful events in my life, thank you very much!).

Long version:

As some of you may have read, I brought Oscar to her vet's this
morning. The vet and I put her in an E collar, and I got liquid
antibiotics to give Oscar twice a day. The vet said, if the E collar
didn't work out, we could try a baby sock taped to the leg, but we
really wanted the E collar to work because it allows the paw plenty of
air flow and kept her from licking *any* of her paws.

I got home planning to somehow find a way to give Oscar her meds, but
when I came home she was in silent hiding, and she hadn't touched
*any* of the treats all over the house, let alone her food. Finally I
found her hiding in the back of the elevated dirt area in the
basement. I carried her out -- she was purring and trying to rub her
face on me, but she couldn't because of the collar -- and brought her
upstairs. As soon as I set her down, she started backing up and did
so until she hit a wall, then got "stuck" there.

As I called DH and his aunt (a medical professional, human variety) for
advice, I heard some loud noises. Oscar went missing again. I think I
once again had the chance to intimately explore the basement. We have
shops close by, so I was able to get tiny baby socks and some vet wrap
(the stuff that sticks to itself but not other stuff).

Came home and searched for Oscar everywhere. Not in the basement, not
in the bedroom. Finally found her under the futon in the guest room.
I guess she backed under it, then couldn't get out because of the
stupid collar. I felt like such a traitor as she purred and slobbered
in thanks for being rescued. Straight into the bathroom, where I had
stashed the new stuff and the medicine.

I couldn't get the medicine into her mouth with the collar on, so in a
gesture of trust, I removed the collar. She put up a minor commotion
over the medicine, but I actually think most of the dropperfull got
into her mouth.

Next step, baby sock. She was so hungry that I managed to slip the
sock onto her paw a few times as she ate, but she would freak out when
I started trying to put the tape on, and the sock instantly came off.
I asked my neighbor to help, but that just seemed to make everything
worse. I had a hisspitting, bucking, clawing, biting fiasco on my
hands. Every attempt, though, the second I put her down, she purred
and rubbed on me and told me how much she needed my comfort. I felt
evil. I wished I were a smoker so I could have a smoke to take the
edge off.

Decided to go to an emergency clinic to ask for help bandaging the paw
and maybe a sedative. The closest one also had the shortest
anticipated wait, so there we went. Unlike our regular vet, no humans
go back with the patients. They refer to pets as "kids" and owners as
"parents", a touch I appreciated. Also had coffee, tea, and snacks.
I went with the camomile tea, hoping it would calm me down.

I fully anticipated some kind of help getting the paw wrapped and
getting out of there, so I kind of went into shock when the vet tech,
Katie, came out to let me know that there was an abscess (however
that's spelled) and Oscar would need to get surgery to have it
drained. I waved away any discussion of price, just wanted to
understand the risks. I elected to get her blood checked first to
make sure she doesn't have any conditions that would keep her from
waking up after the anesthesia.

So. Oscar is there now. It's midnight. There was another surgery
case there, so the estimate is that she will be done around 4am.
Because of the delay, they'll keep her till the morning with no
hospitalization charge. They won't call me unless something goes
wrong, so in theory I can sleep (hah).

They let me say good night to her, and also let me drive home for an
ancient (like, from when she was 6 months old) catnip pillow and a
sock for licking. I wasn't able to give them to her myself because
another surgery was being prepped when I got back. I'm hoping she'll
be tempted to lick the sock instead of her paw.

I'm strongly considering keeping Oscar there for a few days. They
mentioned needing to give her two other medicines (in addition to the
antibiotic? Not sure). I figure that she will stay cleaner, have
people to watch her better (tomorrow's a holiday, but I have to work the
rest of the week), and won't be able to get into trouble. Not to
mention that maybe they will cause her less trauma than I would, trying
to handle the paw or feed her the meds. And presumably she won't
require the e collar. That would be about $120 a day. With the
kitty-morphine they gave her (B-something, can't remember the name), she
was calm enough to even luv up on the vet techs.



--
monique, who spoils Oscar unmercifully

pictures: http://www.bounceswoosh.org/rpca

On 2006-07-04, Karen penned:
I was just wondering if you could get some of that heat shrink
plastic to go over the exposed insulation area? not good for you
guys to have that exposed either.

I just took a look. The full-sized half of the basement has plastic
covering yellow insulation. The yellow sticks out here and there at
the edges, but I doubt that it was the problem.

The crawlspace, on the other hand, has pink insulation all around with
no covering. There's also at least one square just lying on the
ground, where Oscar might have walked, and a few rolls that are mostly
plastic wrapped, but I'd have to investigate more closely to figure
out if they could be a problem. I imagine, though, that it's not as
simple as covering up or removing existing pieces -- won't there be
microscopic particles everywhere?

DH says that I shouldn't feel guilty and that we can't cat-proof the
whole house. He says he doesn't even necessarily agree that we should
do anything to block Oscar's access. I think he has a habit of
overstating the difficulty of something and then throwing up his
hands. Of course we can take some sort of steps. He just doesn't
want to deal with it.

I think we should also inventory that crawl space -- get some real
lights in there, all the way to the back, and be sure we know what's
there. Crawlspace isn't the right term -- it's uneven dirt covered in
heavy plastic and a few boards, and enough room for me to walk if I
hunch over. I was able to carry Oscar to the edge while walking,
albeit in a half-squat.

--
monique, who spoils Oscar unmercifully

pictures: http://www.bounceswoosh.org/rpca

"Monique Y. Mudama" wrote in message
...
On 2006-07-04, Monique Y. Mudama penned:

To be honest, I don't totally understand the reasoning behind
everything. I think these things can get bad in a hurry. This
morning Oscar definitely did not have a fever. It's possible the
paw was much worse by this evening, especially with me freaking
Oscar out trying to get the stupid sock on.

And come to think of it, maybe I didn't understand entirely. I
think they're just going to drain and disinfect the wound, but they
definitely are putting her out for the duration. Maybe because
she's a known trouble maker and they need her to be really still.

I found some links suggesting that an abscess discovered early can be
treated just by cleaning, but larger ones need to have the stuff
inside cleaned out via surgery.

It depends on how deep the wound is and where it is. I could treat about
2/3 of Jake's myself, the vet did the rest. And a degree of sedation is
easier on the cat normally rather than having to fight them. I agree with
you that after checking on her, I might be inclined to leave her for a few
days. Especially since she is determined to fight you. Though $120 a day
seems pretty high for aftercare.

Purrs of course on the way. For the both of you.
Jo

wrote:
Poor Oscar. What is with abscesses this month...Oscar, Vino, Biskit
too!
With Biskit (and it was a relatively bad abscess), the vet hardly
touched it except to clean it a bit, gave us antibiotic and sent us on
our way.

She's okay now? Maybe one factor is that abscesses can be hard to
find on cats, so they get overlooked. I imagined you might have had
even more trouble finding it if Biskit didn't happen to have a lion
cut.