Life, the Universe, and Spokane

Poor Vandal. If it's not one thing, it's another. This morning, Julia found a claw on the bed. Not a casting, but a whole claw. And a bloody raw area on his paw. So he got to go to the vet. The claw is infected. What we're trying to sort out is which came first:

• The breakage of the misshapen, thickened, yellow claw


• The infection

He's got another claw that's as bad, so we're going to keep a close eye on this.

And horror of horrors, the vet trimmed his claws! (and showed me exactly what Vandal needed done)

So the poor kitty is on antibiotics for a while and foot soaking twice a day (yes, in water and chlorhexadrine). If it doesn't clear, he's looking at amputation/biopsy of the affected area.

S

*grumble* After spending a night not thinking that I slept much at all (but getting up strangely refreshed), I seem to have turned into a faucet. It was so bad at work today that I came home early to get some sudafed. I mean, I was spending more time blowing and blotting my nose than typing -- REALLY! It took 4 tissues to make it through the 15 minute drive home!!!!!!!!!

Slowly drying out now, but definitely feeling some sinus pressure. Yuck!

And I am taking little black kitty back to the kitty doctor. Her foot responded well to the antibiotics for the first couple of days, but hasn't gotten any better in about a week. In fact, I think it might be a little worse again -- she's not as active as she was last week. *sigh*

S

Poor Sable. She just had three paws and a lip biopsied today. We don't expect to find anything really nasty - we are just checking for whether or not some recurrent issues are immune-related. She's had a recurring problem with scrapping up a paw and chewing it raw (and infected). Earlier this summer, I thought I had headed off an incident, but failed. When we left for Pennsic, we knew her right front paw was becoming a mess, but did not want to have a pet sitter trying to medicate her (she hissed at the sitter giving her wet food!). By the time we got back, both front paws were a mess and her right back paw was getting bad -- by Monday she had chewed the paw raw. So she is on antibiotics and has three paws bandaged (with the funny collar). We are probably going to start a steroid sometime next week.

Needless to say, watching her walk (or fail to) on the hardwood floors downstairs convinced us that she is confined upstairs while she's bandaged. Fortunately, the stairs have a kitty gate on them.

Vandal is getting an echocardiogram -- the vet thought he heard a murmur, so we want to check. Unfortunately, that means he is getting shaved a bit again.

Julia's legs are better -- no more rash and no more edema!

That's all for now!

S