Sox Had Surgery
In The Bathroom
As most of you lovely readers know well by now, there is no veterinarian in Mompiche. In the past, we had the amazing Esteban who visited several times annually to treat our pets. He died a year ago, causing the singular most impactful loss the village has ever experienced. There is not a single person in Mompiche left unaffected by his passing. Nowadays, Nahomy comes from Quito every so often for a clinic. When ten or more clients express interest in vet care, which makes it worth her while, she packs her bongos and heads to the beach to examine and treat our critters. We hold the vet clinics downstairs.
Nahomy’s most recent visit ended up with Tyke in surgery to remove some tumors we’d found in his mouth. Since then, we got through a few rough days that caused me several sleepless nights and way too much stress, and Tyke has perked up quite a bit. After a week on Presnidone to reduce the inflammation in his mouth, he’s now on CBD oil and turmeric oil daily. Every morning, I have to (carefully) wrestle him into the bathroom and administer the oils. I make sure the droppers are prepped ahead of time. I’m careful to drop the CBD oil directly onto the tumor site. I usually grab him while he’s eating. Since taking the oils every day, he seems to be doing much better. We’re waiting for Nahomy to come back and examine him again so we can monitor the site of the tumors and make sure they don’t grow back.
Recently, Sox has been curling up in bed with me. This is unusual behavior. Sox is an outside cat. He made it extremely clear from the very beginning that he prefers to live in the garden rather than in the house. He comes upstairs to eat and take naps in hammocks, but spends most of his time sleeping on the barbecue or in the garden. He sleeps downstairs at night. That’s his territory. Finding him in my bed two mornings in a row was strange. Under the guise of a love-fest, I ran my hands all over his body to see if there were any sore spots, any indications of pain, or any wounds. Under his elbow, I discovered a massive abscess. He wouldn’t let me touch it. I felt a couple of scabs. It seems he’d been in a fight with another cat and was bitten. The two or three day old wound had become infected.
Leaping into action, I immediately checked my supplies of injectable tranquilizer, ketamine, and antibiotics. My supplies of syringes were good. There was other necessary equipment in the cat’s first aid box. Then, to make sure I got it all right, I checked the old messages from Esteban from the time I asked for help to do surgery on Max to remove a catfish bone embedded into the back of her tongue. All the dosages were written in lay-speak, exactly what I needed. Esteban, from the grave, helped me get Sox tranked and knocked out with the correct doses of each of the meds.
Before I started, I swabbed the bench with disinfectant and made sure all my syringes were lined up in order of use. Equipment was laid out in front of me. I snapped latex gloves onto my hands and grabbed the increasingly cranky cat, who was not the slightest bit impressed that he’d been caught and confined. I had to be careful how I picked him up because my dicky wrist doesn’t like those angles. The first injection is the tranquilizer. It takes a few minutes to take effect, so I left Sox on the bathroom floor to complain loudly about his horrifically unfair treatment until he finally started becoming floppy. From there, I put him up on the bench again and quickly shot the ketamine into his butt. After a few minutes, he was on his side with his tongue hanging out. I gently tugged on his tongue and he didn’t react.
Normally, when Nahomy does the surgeries at the clinic, she has a drip connected to each patient with a catheter inserted into their shaved front paw. This happens after the tranquilizer is administered and the critter is calm. I didn’t have that luxury. Even if I had the drip equipment and saline bag, there’s still no way I could find a vein. I can do intramuscular and subcutaneous injections without problems but have never done an intravenous injection. In this case, it wasn’t really necessary.
Sox was out on the operating table. I peeled the new scalpel from its wrapping and dipped it into the disinfectant liquid I’d prepped earlier, then sliced into his now sterilized elbow. It’s worth having a scalpel or two in the first aid kit, as well as a couple of stitching needles and absorbable thread. It was just a small incision directly into the center of the abscess. It immediately exploded. Pus and blood oozed out. Scooping up the goop with squares of clean gauze, I pressed and squeezed gently until nothing more came out. It took a while to clean out and then clean it all up with more disinfectant. Then, I injected the antibiotic into the shoulder directly above the wound. For a split second, I thought about stitching the incision, but then recalled Esteban telling me not to stitch an abscess. Instead, I left it open to drain.
I put Sox on a clean towel in the shower stall while he was still out and cleaned up the surgery table, putting away all the meds and binning all the waste. Sox spent a couple of cranky hours in the bathroom coming out of the anesthesia and banging on the door for me to let him out. It’s too easy for a wobbly cat to fall off my house, so I kept him confined in the bathroom until he was able to walk without falling over. I don’t need another wounded cat or any more broken bones. At this point, I can’t afford another feline medical emergency. Eventually, when I opened the door, he came out raging. His nickname is “Scrappy Cat” and he’s definitely a fighter.
Sox made a beeline for the catfood. Fair enough. I’d grabbed him before breakfast and by the time he was back on his feet, it was after lunch. He scarfed down most of the fish on the plate, then stomped downstairs, shooting a disdainful look at me as he disappeared. That’s an indication he’s not talking to me until he’s ready. I accept he’s mad. I would be too. He came up a short time later to eat again and went over to have a siesta in his blue hammock, next to his brother Zak who was in his blue hammock. Max was napping in the pink hammock. Off-screen, Tyke was in his yellow hammock. A normal siesta hour!
A week later, Sox is as good as gold, like nothing happened. As often as possible, I’ve been surrepticiously checking his elbow under the guise of hugs and scratches so I can feel around. It’s healed well. After the post-surgery super-ABs injection, I put him on broad spectrum antibiotics for seven days. Every twelve hours, I grabbed the scruff of his neck and shot .75ml of meds down his throat with a syringe. I also kept an eye on the wound, just to make sure. He’s returned to his ususal habit of living downstairs and spending most of his time in the garden. Lesson: It’s important to take notice of odd behaviors in pets. When they start doing something they don’t usually do, there could be something wrong. Sleeping in my bed was his way of telling me he wasn’t feeling well.
Sox is lucky I figured it out quickly. Even though I didn’t have any idea what I was looking for at the beginning, I found the problem fast and treated it immediately. An untreated abscess can quickly escalate into severe complications including sepsis, cellulitis, or localized tissue death. Bacteria can spread to the jawbone, brain, or heart and can be fatal if left unattended. This is the third time I’ve treated an abscess on a cat, but only the first time I’ve had to use anesthetic to lance and clean one. This surgery wasn’t optional. It just worked out that I had to do it myself because of the lack of a vet in Mompiche and also because I’m not putting a cat in a bus to the city for any reason. The one time I took Tyke to see a vet in Esmeraldas, we both ended up traumatized. Today, Sox is in great shape. Tyke is his usual fiesty self. Zak, Max, and Mae are all good. It’s me that’s still a mess…