Current mood:

frustrated

So things haven't been so great lately. I mean I'm used to things not being so great, but this time it's because of my cat, Jazz. I love animals so much and when they hurt, I hurt. Last saturday we went out somewhere and came home to a mess of blood spots throughout the house. At first we thought one of the cats got a bird, but there was no bird/feathers anywhere. Then my mom instantly jumped to the conclusion that Jazz "attacked" my other kitty and injured her (he's a feisty devil). But I inspected her and found nothing wrong, in fact she was peacefully sleeping in the same spot as she was before we left. It actually took us a while to figure out that it was JAZZ who was the injured one, because he had stopped bleeding and was running around like normal. But upon inspection we found a very nasty looking gash on his left front leg. We're still not sure exactly what happened, as it could have been any number of things. Either way I wanted to take him to the vet right away but the rents didn't feel that it was an emergency since it stopped bleeding (read: they didn't want to spend the money when all they thought the vet was going to do is clean it up and put a bandage on it) and that they would give Jazz a chance to clean it and let it heal on its own.

To make a long story short (too late!), we realized a few days later that it was going to need stitches in order to heal properly. We took him to the vet, where they confirmed the need for stitches. At first they were just going to give him a local anesthetic and stitch it up on the spot, but then they got a better look at it and saw that it had already started healing from the inside, and in order to have it heal properly, they would need to cut it BACK open and stitch it. So he had to be put completely under. So for the past three days, my poor baby Jazz has been forced to wear one of those evil satellite dish things on his head, which is absolute torture for a cat as active as he is. Not to mention the fact that he's not allowed to go outside. All he does is sleep and mew. He's terribly depressed, and in turn that makes ME depressed. They say he has to wear this thing for 14 days!! There's no way he's going to last that long. Someone ought to invent a better version of the E collar, one that's not so nagging and uncomfortable.




EDIT: OMG. As I was sitting here typing this message, Jazz, who was resting peacefully in his pet carrier (he likes to sleep in it), all of a sudden he just FLIPS OUT. I don't even know how to describe it. He just started flopping around in the carrier like MAD and wouldn't stop (don't worry, the door was open). Seriously, it was like he was possessed. You would have had to see it to believe it. Not knowing why he was behaving this way and being rather frightened that something was seriously wrong with him, I foolishly reached into the carrier to try and stop him, and even though my hands were only in there for a split second I got messed up pretty bad. Then all of a sudden he came out. His bandage was PULLED OFF (not unwrapped, but pulled in one piece. It's still leg-shaped!) and he got out of his E collar. There's even wads of FUR still attatched to the bandage. I still don't understand how he did it, but there you are.

PHOTO EVIDENCE:

So here I am, home alone and it's late so there's not much I can do about it. I've been following him around the house squirting him with water to prevent him from licking his stitches. I can't even go near his leg in order to try to wrap it up in some kind of half-assed manner without having him squirm and hiss at me. I have NO idea what I'm going to do for the rest of the night. I KNEW that the collar thing wouldn't last long. The vets who think that the collar and bandage are good enough to keep an incision site free from harm obviously have not met THE JAZZ. I swear to God he's like Satan in cat form.