Last Friday morning, I was giving Remy and Trickster their pills and morning snack when I noticed two wounds on Remy's back foot. Tim said he'd been fine the night before; Remy always sits on the arm of the couch next to Tim while he watches a DVD. I hadn't noticed anything on Thursday night either; I got in from work about 11:30pm and gave everyone some dry food. We have storage tubs stair-stepped around their room, and Remy had jumped up to the top level - pretty much my eye level, so I'm sure I would have noticed a bloody wound.
Conveniently, I was on the night shift again Friday, so I bundled Remy into a carrier and took him to the vet. He confirmed that Remy appeared to have caught his foot on something sharp, and he said it was bad enough that he needed stitches. When I got home, I looked everywhere I could think of, around all his favorite spots, thinking I would see a bit of skin or hair, or spots of blood, or something to indicate how he'd hurt himself.
Nada. Nothing. Zilch.
Tim picked him up when he got off work at 5pm, and he looked around some more. Then we both moved things around and looked on Saturday. Now it's Monday, and we still haven't figured it out. ::sigh:: We'd both feel better if we knew the hazard was taken care of.
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| "Great. Now she's taking pictures, too." |
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On Friday, as soon as Tim got home, he dressed Remy in the Bloody Wound Hat. You know, the plastic cone that's supposed to keep a cat or dog from picking at stitches or over-cleaning wounds. On Saturday morning, I saw that our cone was too short, and indeed Remy was able to reach his foot. Darn it! So, while I kept an eye on Remy and stopped him every time he reached for his foot, Tim went to at least four stores looking for a bigger E-collar.
Aside: Do you know why those plastic cones are called E-collars? It's short for Elizabethan collar, because it calls to mind the wide, stiff lace ruffs worn around the neck in the time of the first Queen Elizabeth.
Tim said the raw area looked larger on Saturday evening than he remembered from Friday. If Remy was licking it all night, then he probably took off some of the hair around it, which was short anyway, because they shaved the area before stitching him up.
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| Saturday night it looked very raw. |
We talked about me taking him back to the vet this morning, just to have it checked out, but I think we have done this every time someone has had to have stitches for something, and it's always fine. Even when Mah-mah started sloughing off skin after her cancer surgery, it wasn't in the first couple of days and it was pretty obvious something was wrong.
I took new photos today, and asked Tim to come look at them side by side on the computer, but he declined. He said if it looked better to me, that's fine. I'm just concerned about dragging Remy into the vet for nothing.
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| How it looks on Monday. |
He's been resting all morning, which is best. At least he'll only have to be alone for three or four hours today. Tomorrow, I'm back to my normal shift, but at least I can come home at lunch and check on him for a few minutes.
The stitches should be able to come out in about two weeks, so he may not have to be a Frankenkitty or an Elizabethan noble for Halloween, just the sweet kitty he is.
