Veterinary Adventures

Actually, I wasn't "burned out" so much as "stressed out," or at the very least coming down from stress, last Thursday. The reason: taking little Eliot for his first visit to the vet.

The stress really started a little earlier in the week when, acting with all good intentions, I bought some Sargent's flea-and-tick control medicine for the cat. He's an outdoor / indoor cat, so with spring coming on (my azaleas are in bloom!), I thought it would be a good idea to protect him from those common pests.

I knew he wouldn't like it, but I had no idea how strong willed he is. Following the directions on the label, I applied one tube of the ointment to the back of his neck and began messaging it in. As I expected, Eliot reacted to the wetness and tried to run away, but I held him down and kept massaging the medicine into his coat. After a minute or two, I was convinced the stuff was reasonably worked in, so I let Eliot go. He retreated, looking back at me as if to say, "What the hell was that all about?," but soon forgot about my rudeness and went on about his cat business. I went to bed.

The next morning, as I made my breakfast with the cat slinking around me, I noticed a bare spot on his neck where I had applied the Sargent's. Not only that, but the skin exposed by the missing fur was bright red in color. I investigated further, and found two smaller bald spot on his back and neck. Apparently, not happy with the medicine on his fur, he elected to instead scratch it off, leaving sore, bare spots on his neck.

It was also about that time that I started noticing little tufts of orange fur at various locations all around the house.

That day, I called a vet to set up his appointment for vaccinations and to have the doctor take a look at the irritated skin on his neck. I couldn't get an appointment until the next day, although I was concerned about the medicine getting into his system by way of dermal absorption.

While I was at work that day, Eliot continued to de-fur himself. When I returned home, there were more orange furballs around the house, and Eliot had larger bare spots. The exposed skin was also now far redder and with some scabs from scratching himself.

Now I worried that the medicine could get directly into his blood stream by way of the scratches. I tried washing his back off to get rid of the irritating ointment and he wasn't too happy about me getting him wet again. But despite the washing, he kept viciously scratching at his neck with his back foot, pulling out still more fur. My once pretty little kitten was starting to look like a mangy mutt.

So our appointment at the vet finally came. I rounded Eliot up and put him in the new cat carrier I bought along with the flea medicine. He wasn't happy about that either, but once I carried him out to the car and started the car, he positively freaked. He started thrashing around inside the carrier, trying to break out just by sheer strength of pushing himself through the mesh walls.

I tried to calm him by talking in a soothing, affectionate voice and petting him through the walls of the carrier with my free hand while I drove, but he was inconsolable. He was pressing his nose so hard against the mesh that it was turning bright red, and I was starting to wonder just how strongly constructed his little carrier actually was. I was to soon learn the answer.

It is only 2 miles to the vet, but it seemed like I hit every red light on Peachtree on my way, some even turning red twice before I got through. As Eliot flailed away, I could feel my blood pressure rising from the stress. And then, as if we weren't already having enough fun, Eliot succeeded in finding a weak seam in the carrier and suddenly burst out, leaping onto my dashboard.

So there I was, driving along a busy six-lane urban street with a panicked cat loose in the car. Of course, he ran right in front of me on the dash, partially blocking my view. I had to drive like that for another 100 yards before I found a parking lot I could turn in on to stop the car and grab him. I stuffed him back into the carrier and drove the rest of the way to the vet's office with one hand, using my other hand to hold shut the broken seam on the carrier, because Eliot, now that he had learned that he could in fact escape the carrier, doubled his effort to get out again (I said he was strong willed).

By the time we finally got to the vet, we were both wrecks. My hands were literally shaking with stress and my mouth was all dry. And my poor cat looked like a beating victim - in addition to the missing fur and the underlying irritated skin, with scabs, his nose was now blood blistered from rubbing against the mesh. My pretty little pet looked abused, and I felt like the most irresponsible pet owner in the world. That's when he found another weak seam (or sufficiently weakened another seam), and again came bursting out of the carrier. I caught him literally in mid-air as he tried to escape.

The vets were great, though - they've probably seen everything before - and brought us both into the exam room where they calmed Eliot down by stroking his head as they performed their examination. Eliot was relaxed, but they denied me my request for some horse tranquilizers.

The doctor re-washed the irritated area with a medicinal soap, and gave Eliot a steroid injection to promote healing of his skin. They also took some blood for lab tests and gave him a de-worming pill just in case he picked anything up in his feral days before moving in with me.

He was calm on the way home, although happy to finally get out of his carrier. Within a half hour, he was acting as if nothing had happened. The soap worked - he stopped the scratching and his skin is healing nicely. He still has some bald patches, though - I guess we'll just have to wait for the fur to grow back.

The results came back from the lab and confirmed that he is a healthy cat - no heartworm, no FIV, no feline leukemia. So now I get to repeat our big adventure next week and bring him back for his vaccinations, since the doctor didn't want to overdo it by vaccinating him on top of the steroids. Instead, we'll wait for him to heal from the fur loss and let the dewormer run its course before shooting him up with more meds.

Our next appointment is this Tuesday.