I have two kitties, Jack and Zoe. They are about 8 years old, and they are brother & sister litter-mates.
Hobbs the "dog", Zoe & Jack
I love them with all my heart.
So of course, if they get sick or injured, even just a little, I become a complete mess. To make a long story short, I noticed Jack was acting a little strange last night. Then, just as I was about to eat my dinner, I noticed his right rear paw was bloody.
Heart in my throat, I picked him up to investigate closer. There was one of his claws, hanging by a thread. Poor little guy did something or other and ripped out a claw!!!!
First I cleaned it, and noted that it had stopped bleeding. Then,
TO THE GOOGLE!
I was able to conclude from the various sites I found that this is something where as long as it is no longer bleeding and does not look infected, this is something for which I can wait until morning to cal the Vet. I watched him closely the whole evening, and at bed time he curled up on my head as usual.
In the morning, still no further bleeding, not limping, not swollen, but it was really hard to leave for work knowing he was injured. Called the vet in the a.m. The tech said they were booked, but she both reaffirmed me, and scared the hell out of me. ” Yes, you’re right, there’s not much we can do, you just have to let it heal. Especially since he’s putting weight on it with no issue.” And here is the scary part “you should watch him closely all morning this morning, and then give us a call in the afternoon just in case.
So it was kind of like holding “take your kitty to work day”, but I brought work to them. I set up my Command Center on the living room couch.
- 2 laptops
- one binder and a bunch of loose printouts
- calculator
- cell phone
- regular phone
- coffee
- Zoe on the couch to my right
- Jack on the floor to my left
My day consisted of office work mixed with careful monitoring of Jack’s gait, whether he was limping, watching to see if he over-groomed the spot…
OK he jumped onto that chair without wincing. That’s good.
Can I get a closer look? No? Please? Ow…OK I’ll put you down.
OK he’s napping…good for him to stay off of it.
Time to give it a gentle wipe with some water…get kitty litter off
All seems OK for now. He did eventually let me look at it a couple of times. Nothing swollen, infected, bleeding, or anything. He puts weight on it just fine, and when I touch his foot it’s fine. The bigger problem is when he needs to spread his toes for any reason like traction, grooming, stretching…he winces and then very gently grooms the spot. Vet agreed that I just need to keep watch. It’s hard to watch 🙁
Sheesh! I’m so going to lose sleep over this. Poor little fuzzy guy. I’m going to put away the computer and let him have my lap for a while.
xo
en
Update 8/31/10
Jack has improved tremendously. I have been checking on his toe every day. At first he would cry out when I spread his toes, but now he just gets annoyed. After a day or so it actually had an odor. I was understandably concerned, so I had George hold him while I soaked his foot in a cup of water to loosen anything that may have been in there. I didn’t want to actually touch it too much. After drying him off I put Neosporin between his toes. My vet had recommended it once, so I knew if he got a little in his mouth from grooming he’d be OK. I applied the Neosporin for the next few days, but one night he over groomed and bled a bit so I let it be. Last night it looked pretty dirty again with bits of kitty litter. We annoyed the living daylights out of the poor little guy by soaking his foot and picking out the litter by hand. We could see immediately that 1) he was not in nearly as much pain, and 2) the wound was no longer raw and probably had a little scab on it. In spite of how much we annoyed him, and the fact that it may have hurt a little, he didn’t run away, and he slept on my head through the night. Yay!