Normally Sunny is the best-behaved boy at the vet’s.
But not today. Some of you may recall when Sunny had his annual checkup last year and I was told that he had to start taking new meds for his kidneys. I was also told that he should have another blood test in six month’s time to check that his kidneys were still functioning well, but of course stuff like my emergency op and then starting chemo got in the way. And so I decided to make sure he got in for a checkup before I went in for the liver op. . .
Went through the usual trauma getting him there (what? no brekky? nooooo … not the cage!!! ) and he squawked all the way during the walk through the barrio and the taxi ride. Then once we got to the vet’s I reminded Begonia to listen to Sunny’s heart first thing before he started purring, and everything was going well until the blood test. I remember last time it was a bit touch and go, too. It seems Sunny also has ‘difficult veins’ (like me) and so after getting an insufficient amount of blood from the right front leg, Begonia tried the left one. Nuthin. Couldn’t find a vein. So she tried the right one again.
I should point out that Begonia’s assistant was still away on holidays, but as Sunny is such a “well-behaved boy” he is usually fine with just me holding on to him while the vet does her stuff. But by the time she went back to the right front leg (after poking the other one with the needle about five times) Sunny had had enough. In one lightning move he kicked the vial out of Begonia’s hand and also sunk his teeth into my wrist (ouch!!!). So most of the blood already taken was lost and I ended up with two teeth holes right next to my wrist veins – he just missed them by a hair!
What a disaster! At that point we decided to call the whole thing off and Begonia told me that I should see my GP today to ask about getting antibiotics and possibly a tetanus shot. Fuck. I think I might leave it till tomorrow – I’ve had cat bites before that never amounted to anything serious. You know, I think I hate going to the vet’s almost as much as Sunny does . . .
~ image from cats on t-shirts ~
casa azahar 
What a trauma – for both of you! I hope your bite is OK, but I’d definitely get it checked out; you might be more vulnerable to infections right now.
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The bite hurts like hell at the moment, which I think is mostly bruising, but I talked to Dr A on the phone and he agrees that I should wait to see if it shows signs of infection before I start taking antibiotics – especially just before an operation.
He did say that it probably wouldn’t hurt to get a tetanus shot if my last one was more than ten years ago (I can’t remember!) so I might do that tomorrow.
Some good news. I got a call from Begonia saying that the amount of blood she managed to hang onto was actually enough to check liver and kidney function, but it wasn’t enough for the full test. I guess that’s something, especially as I’m not planning on taking Sunny back for at least a couple of months. His poor legs are all bruised and very sore looking now. I’ve been giving him lots of extra cuddles and snibbles.
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Ouch.
I hope someone’s giving you lots of cuddles and snibbles!
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Maybe this will help. Someone just sent it to me…
5 MINUTE CHOCOLATE MUG CAKE
4 tablespoons cake flour ( that’s plain flour, not self-raising)
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons baking cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)
a small splash of vanilla essence
1 coffee mug
Put dry ingredients in mug mix well
Add the egg and mix thoroughly.
Pour in the milk and oil and mix well.
Add the chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla essence, and mix again. (you can also do all the above in a bowl and then pour it in your mug)
Microwave for 3 minutes at 1000 watts. The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don’t be alarmed!
Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired.
EAT!
Note: This can serve 2 if you want to feel slightly more virtuous. (What’s vi..rtu…ous…? ;>)
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PS… Benjamin has to go to the vet this week and get his shots. It has “been a while”.
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Poor baby Sunny, poor you! No fun. Cuddles and snibbles to both of you. Anneke’s cake sounds wonderful. I will have to steal the recipe, cause sometimes, living alone, I just want a little something like that.
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Anneke, I stumbled across that recipe awhile ago. Have you tried it yet? You can see it here with photos.
All cuddles and snibbles gratefully accepted! 🙂
Got to go see a GP today about my wrist (Dr A is still away on holidays) because it’s quite swollen and painful. Not sure if it’s infected or not – could be just badly bruised.
Poor Sunny’s front legs look a mess and must really hurt too. Maybe I should find a different vet…
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Yikes! Cat bites are nasty and be very, very careful; your immune system is impaired!
Do me a favour and take my advice: GO TO THE DOCTOR NOW!
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You know how dogs are generally sensitive to your moods and feelings? Cats are, too, only they generally do the opposite of whatever’s needed. That’s part of their charm, but sometimes they’re overzealous in their need to do whatever it is you need them least to do.
PS, do go see the doctor, it would be bad if your hand fell off right before surgery. And it would impair your scrabble game.
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that chocolate cake looks yummy – wish I still had my microwave.
Az are you going to take a photo of your wrist and put it up on the blog?
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Your wish is my command, nursemyra…
vampire cat
That wrist is almost twice the size of the other one right now.
I got a virtual kick in the butt from raincoaster this morning (thank you!), telling me not to wait but to get myself to a doctor immediately. And since Dr A is away it seemed a better idea to go to emergency at my hospital, since they have all my records there.
And so I got in touch with Sara & Steve (Nog was out teaching and Pipocas was tied up at work) and they came with me, thus adding to their Total Sevilla Experience (apparently it compares to spending a couple of hours in a Paris police station).
Anyhoodle, after the traditional one-hour wait I got in to see a doctor who told me the wound was already infected, so she prescribed some antibiotics and also an anti-inflammatory. I also got a tetanus shot.
I was worried about taking antibiotics so close to having major surgery but I was assured that it would be way worse to have a raging infection (point taken). And so, I’m supposed to keep track of my temperature to make sure I don’t have a fever. And if the swelling and redness doesn’t go away in a couple if days I’m supposed to go see my GP (Dr A will be back in town by then).
On the way out I stopped in to see Isabel (one of The Team) and showed her my wrist. She just rolled her eyes and told me to go home and stay home and stop getting into trouble!
Afterwards we met up with Nog, and the lovely Sara treated us all to a fabulous lunch at Bodeguita Romero. The owner, Pedro Romero, asked me if I would translate their menu into English, which made me feel kinda special. And they also gave us some new tapas (not yet on the menu) to sample.
I can’t believe S & S will be leaving on Saturday – the time has just flown by!
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I haven’t tried it, yet. I haven’t even had time for something as easy as that! I have some really good, fair-trade, Dutch cocoa –dark, almost black… MMMM — and can’t wait to try it out with that…
Re: the cat and vet. I recall my former mother-in-law telling me that they took their cat in to the vet and their usual vet wasn’t there.
There was a just-out-of-vet-school substitute who thought she knew everything and when Helen said that Melissa got testy during exams and needed the kid-glove treatment, the vet hauled out this thing that looked like some sort of Medieval S&M device with a hood and goggles and, without even touching the cat first to see if she was calm, tried to put this on the cat!
The inevitable happened and Melissa went nuts, the vet got scratched and then the vet said “Your cat is unmanageable and I won’t deal with her. I suggest you have her put down”.
I said to Helen, “Did you make a complaint?”
She said “No, I just won’t go there again.”
Honestly!? Obviously this woman had no sense whatsoever. Without even knowing if the cat was manageable, decide to do something which would absolutely freak it out and then blame the cat! AND to suggest that Helen needed to have the cat “put down” because SHE initiated a situation that cause the cat to freak out!!!!
I’d have complained long and loud. This woman should not have been let loose on the animals of the world.
Poor Melissa…
I changed vets because Benjamin’s first vet preferred dogs. He just seemed not very interested in cats.
Another Melissa story.
One evening, Russ looked out the back window and hollered “There’s something wrong with Melissa!”.
Melissa was coming down the slope at the back of the house which backed onto the railway tracks. She seemed to have had a stroke or something. She would drag herself a foot or so and collapse and drag herself and collapse.
Russ ran out to get her while Helen looked on in fear of what was wrong. When Russ leaned down to look at her, he just about fell over laughing.
Melissa had somehow gotten her front paw up under her collar and was trying to walk on three paws with the other under the collar. He freed the paw and she took off into the house. Much relief!
We were looking after her once and she got sprayed right in the face by a skunk.
My advice in a skunk-spray situation is… Do not peel off your pants and climb into the shower stall in order to wash the skunk off the cat….
‘Nuff said….
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Glad to hear that you got that checked out, Az!
Silly girl.
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*cringing* at the thought of tetanus shot. talk about OW!!!
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Glad you got it checked and got antibiotics. We’ll tell teamknull that they’ve changed the formula for the tetanus shots, and they aren’t as bad as they used to be.
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They used to be awful! Being a rather ‘accident prone” (read> clumsy) child, I got Tetanus shots with great regularity. I started getting reactions to the shot. Now they only do it once every… what is it now, 3?… 5? years if you need it.
I think the last time I got one, it was after getting stitches in my head while in Florence (Italy).
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I might point out that I am now an “accident prone” adult… Read that as you may…. ;>
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I just got a tetanus shot a couple of months ago, I was dreading it because I remembered how much it hurt in the past. Surprise! I barely felt it AND it didn’t get all sore. So … nothing (not much, anyway) to be afraid of any more. What a relief.
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Also, Az, glad you had company in ER. Only an hour wait, though, that’s amazing. It’s about 4 here, no lie.
Try and take a few extra naps for a couple of days ….
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It’s hard to find a good vet, Anneke. I had the best one a few years ago (remember Maria, who came to my home when Lua needed the ‘final injection’?) but she moved away last year. Before that I had a series of really bad ones. The one now is okay, but she sure is crap at drawing blood.
Melissa sounds like a character!
Yes, no problem at all with the tetanus shot. Didn’t even feel it.
My last ER wait was about 5 hours, Beth. And I usually wait at least 2 hours to get in to see the oncologist (even though I have an appointment). The traditional one-hour wait I referred to is usually before someone sees you and then says you’re going to have to WAIT. Not today though. 🙂
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Sadly, Melissa is long gone… She was one terrific gal. She was a Tortoiseshell.
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On the vet front, I have had some terrific vets recently. The best, though was one who was actually a specialist in Feline Nuclear Medicine. I got him when I took Benjamin in for his teeth when he was replacing the one who didn’t like cats very much while he was on hols.
I followed him to the vet hospital in our end of town but then he moved way out to Kanata, in the far, far west end. Now I am with one close to home and they are really good.
My niece REALLY lucked out. After a number of emergency visits with Robin who gets “impacted”, she called a vet in an emergency. The vet hadn’t yet opened her practice but gave her lots of free advice over the phone and when her practice opened, Robin became her first patient. Not only is she very good, she has let Ange pay in installments for one procedure because she knows that if she didn’t Ange would have had to put Robin down over something expensive but not very serious.
Yes, Az, I remember Maria…. She was a Godsend. Poor Grumpy Lua.
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wow Az, that is some photo
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First snibbles, cuddles and mufflewhumps.
Second; *points finger* How DARE you not go and get yourself properly looked after AT ONCE when being cat bitten?!?!?!?
Cats rarely brush their teeth and their mouths are filled with pasteurella multocida and other baddies.
*decides not to tell all horrible stories of cat bitten patients*
Anyhow, last time I was seriously bitten, about two years ago, Iggy the Hedgehog forced me to eat some dreadful pills twice daily for ten days. I don’t like anitbiotics – my intestinal and vaginal floras freak out totally – but even less I like melted hands… I’ve had five tetanus shots, so I’ve been told they should last lifelong… No one said how long life expectancy though 😉
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Geez, I get sidetracked for a little bit, and you go off and get bitten! Poor Sunny — can’t say I blame him.
Once got bitten by my cat Poubelle, after I picked her up for a trip to the vet, as a pit bull had tried to eat her. Had a *hole* to the bone, on my finger, but the vet told me to wash it with iodine solution (Betadine) and it healed right up.
You need some snibbles, very definitely. Hope your writst heals with no worries.
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