New frontiers in feline clumsiness
Had a health scare with one of my cats today... But all is well. Late last night, Rosalind started pawing at her mouth, and wouldn't let me or g33kboi get close enough to have a look at it. We thought maybe she'd lost a tooth, or at least had one come loose, or some other kind of dental problems. This morning, she didn't eat any of her food, which is very unusual for her - she's usually a living garbage disposal who will eat anything and everything.
My regular vet was booked solid today and tomorrow, but I got to talk to him on the phone at least, and he thought she should be seen right away, and recommended I take her to any vet near me that could fit her in sooner than he could, and mentioned one in particular near Coxwell and Gerrard. Wonder of wonders, they did have an opening today, so off I went with her - and had to take the Coxwell bus even though it was only a few stops, because my Gods, that cat is heavy!
I was very apprehensive about this, because dentistry for cats can be really expensive - it has to be done under total anaesthetic (because can you imagine a cat actually holding still while its teeth were drilled or extracted?), so it's basically surgery. Fortunately, g33kboi had offered to pay for it, but I still didn't want to run her up a huge bill.
But to my surprise, it turned out there was nothing wrong with her teeth at all - except that she had somehow managed to hook one of them in her upper lip while eating or biting something. I don't think I've ever heard of that happening before... But Rosalind is the klutziest cat I've ever encountered, so if any cat anywhere was able to accidentally bit her own lip hard enough to get a tooth stuck in it, it would have to be her. And sometime over the course of the night, she had gotten it unhooked, but in the process had managed to bite a hole on the inside of her lip.
So all the vet had to do was clean the wound and give her antibiotics and anti-inflammatory painkillers. He gave me more of both to give her at home, and some canned food that would probably be easier on her injured mouth than dry, and was specially formulated to be extra-palatable, so as to entice cats that might otherwise not be wanting to eat.
But as it turns out, by this evening, she was already raiding Claribell's food dish again, so I guess the special food wasn't all that necessary... Not really looking forward to having to medicate her for the next several days, but it's certainly better than her getting some kind of infection, so medicate her I shall. Anyway, the important thing is that it turned out to be nothing major and she seems to be already on the mend.
My regular vet was booked solid today and tomorrow, but I got to talk to him on the phone at least, and he thought she should be seen right away, and recommended I take her to any vet near me that could fit her in sooner than he could, and mentioned one in particular near Coxwell and Gerrard. Wonder of wonders, they did have an opening today, so off I went with her - and had to take the Coxwell bus even though it was only a few stops, because my Gods, that cat is heavy!
I was very apprehensive about this, because dentistry for cats can be really expensive - it has to be done under total anaesthetic (because can you imagine a cat actually holding still while its teeth were drilled or extracted?), so it's basically surgery. Fortunately, g33kboi had offered to pay for it, but I still didn't want to run her up a huge bill.
But to my surprise, it turned out there was nothing wrong with her teeth at all - except that she had somehow managed to hook one of them in her upper lip while eating or biting something. I don't think I've ever heard of that happening before... But Rosalind is the klutziest cat I've ever encountered, so if any cat anywhere was able to accidentally bit her own lip hard enough to get a tooth stuck in it, it would have to be her. And sometime over the course of the night, she had gotten it unhooked, but in the process had managed to bite a hole on the inside of her lip.
So all the vet had to do was clean the wound and give her antibiotics and anti-inflammatory painkillers. He gave me more of both to give her at home, and some canned food that would probably be easier on her injured mouth than dry, and was specially formulated to be extra-palatable, so as to entice cats that might otherwise not be wanting to eat.
But as it turns out, by this evening, she was already raiding Claribell's food dish again, so I guess the special food wasn't all that necessary... Not really looking forward to having to medicate her for the next several days, but it's certainly better than her getting some kind of infection, so medicate her I shall. Anyway, the important thing is that it turned out to be nothing major and she seems to be already on the mend.