Poorly Charlie...

I am going to lump together various days' posts because we not only have visitors at the moment but we have two poorly cats, very poorly cats which are worrying me greatly.  Aunty Joyce and Uncle David are staying with us for a few days.  We had arranged that they would do that this week and next week to ring the changes.  We may need to review this should one or other of the cats need to be confined to barracks like we had to do with Chivers because the room they are staying in is the only one we can do this in successfully.

Charlie has an abscess just near his armpit which is proving resistant to treatment and is now about twice the size it was originally and looks like he has been shot.  It doesn't seem to be bothering him unduly as he is back eating and drinking BUT he will keep licking it and having spoken to the vet she is keen that we try and prevent that as although there is a certain amount of antiseptic in a cat's saliva there are also millions of bacteria in their mouths.  I have checked that the wound no longer oozes anything nasty, nor does it smell but it looks horrific so sorry for the graphic photograph which actually doesn't make it look anything like as red and angry as it is in real life.  Charlie now has some more manageable antibiotics which hopefully will start to do their job - really we didn't manage to get much down him over the weekend so maybe this is why the wound seems to have got worse and we are going to continue with the 'jumper' in an attempt to stop him licking.  This is fashioned from a tube of surgical stockingette stuff which is soft and breathable and we will keep the wound soft and moist with Dermagel to stop it forming an external scab. 

Our other poorly cat is Minnie.  We have no idea what happened to her - she was on the bed as good as gold until the early hours of the morning and then within a space of a couple of hours something happened - we found her this morning curled up in a ball on the sofa and covered in mud and clearly in pain.  She wouldn't eat and ran off when we tried to look at her.  We eventually caught her and couldn't see any visible injuries but her back leg was dragging.  We thought we would keep an eye on her as we do tend to panic a bit but as the day wore on it was clear that she needed veterinary care.  Sadly the practice in Prodromi has gone back to only having a vet on certain afternoons because the other practice is so busy and they need to employ another vet.  Today was not a day when there was anyone at Prodromi so it meant the long drive down to St George's.  The initial examination showed that she seemed to be concussed and in terrible pain - initially they suspected a fractured pelvis.  She was kept in for x-rays and we were relieved when they phoned to say that there was nothing actually broken but severe bruising - not from a car but a fall or a kick which makes me wonder whether she encountered the horse which is back in the vicinity.  Poor poor Minnie, she is a timid soul at the best of times but a trip to the vets and an overnight stay will freak her out big style.  We have to ring tomorrow to see how she has fared overnight and to learn how we will need to care for her.  It may be that she will need to be kept in for a while which is going to be difficult but I have already started putting out feelers for a cage to keep her in if she has to be prevented from jumping.  

I feel absolutely wretched - I can't tell you how much I love our cats and am beside myself when they are poorly.  John is the same and as a result we end up getting very stressed with one another and poor Joyce and David who got caught up in the middle of this and had to entertain themselves whilst we dashed to the vets.

The one redeeming feature for the day was that I had put supper in the slow cooker and so once we had heard from the vets we were able to sit down and enjoy our evening meal.  We had Slower Cooker Honey Lime Ginger Pork made with pork neck chops served with Cyprus Potatoes and Coleslaw and the remainder of the Orange cake from Sunday.  It was delicious and I was glad that we were able to enjoy it safe in the knowledge that Minnie did not have to have surgery.