Cornsss

Anyways. Noko’s home and rather unhappy with his quarantine but he and Ome seem to be getting along better each time they get into close proximity. The vet showed me how to irrigate the abcess drains to keep them open so he can continue to heal and while I’m not convinced I’m doing it right I’m plugging away. This chaos is made complete by the fact that Bill’s away for the week so I get to try to subdue this wriggly cat by myself as I stick a syringe filled with hydrogen peroxide into one of two open incisions. I can guarantee that he’s not enjoying it but I think that I enjoy it even less.

Noko’s also getting clindamycin for the infection and I suspect that that rates almost as high as the irrigation procedure on his poop list. It’s a liquid that I add to his food and this morning he actually stuck his foot in his breakfast to try to sort out the chunks that weren’t tainted by the nasty stuff.

It is worth it because Noko’s a wonderfully loving little cat (or he was before I started tormenting him with stinging bubbly cold fluid two or three times a day) but I hate having to inflict what must feel like the cruelest abuse on him.

Firstly, thank you for your kind thoughts and comments. Noko had been doing well but he’s back at the vet for an overnight visit. Last night when we were giving him his antibiotic meds we noticed a pronounced and very firm bulge on the lower part of his abdomen. His incision looked to be healing nicely, he hasn’t been picking at it and doesn’t need an elizabethan collar, he’d been eating with gusto and there were no problems as far as using the facilities went so we were stumped.
I trotted him in to see Dr. Shannon this morning and she was stumped too. X-rays showed that his surgical wound was healing nicely and that the mass had nothing to do with it. It turned out to be an abscess . . . a nice little welcome home gift from Ome. Unlike Peter and Sophie’s v-e-t experience, Ome decided that Noko smelled weird after his 6 day absence and probably kicked the snot out of him when I wasn’t looking. I never saw signs of full battle but I did catch her engaging in a bit of hiss and smack.
The end result of this latest adventure is that Noko will be quarantined when he gets home with strictly supervised visits so that our loving siblings can readjust to each other without a war. Also, where a normal cat would have a drain shunt installed to keep that abscess clean and healing? Noko’s not getting one on the grounds that he might eat it. Is it just me or is that sort of funny in a grim and morbid way?

It’s been an eventful week for us. Last Tuesday Noko started vomiting with greater frequency than usual (he’s a cat, he pukes, we understand this) but by friday he ended up at the v-e-t-s office where we found out he had a bowel blockage. It turns out that he’s one of those wonderful kitties who eats anything he finds on the floor. After surgical intervention to remove the chunk of dog toy he ate (the toy itself had been thrown out months ago because it’d been torn into said chunks) he had to stay at the animal hospital for monitering and post op care. I was finally able to bring him home today and he’s doing well but I’ve put the litter bowl back in the toilet to remind him that that’s where he needs to go. I’m also hoping to make his life a little easier by not forcing him to balance while his incision is still fresh.