Misty's Misstep

The other day I heard cat shrieks from the backyard, and caught a glimpse of motion going over the back fence into the yard next door. I came out to look for Misty using the tracker tile on her collar, but she was out of range.

I was a bit worried, but found her home when I returned at the end of the day. She seemed herself, but did vocalize (a rarity) on being moved out of my lap. Later on, her dear friends the downstairs tenants reported that she seemed injured. They showed me where a piece of skin seemed to have been removed from her heel, and I made her a vet appointment for first thing the next morning.

The vet said it didn't appear to be a bite, but was a deep tearing of her skin, exposing tendon and muscle, and was right over a joint that could not be immobilized. The injury would be hard to heal. She must have tangled with something sharp in the backyard.

We got her cleaned out and stitched up, and pumped full of antibiotics and NSAIDs; and she came home in her least favorite accessory - the Elizabethan collar. It is supposed to keep her from chewing on the wound, which would contaminate it and pull out the stitches.

She had another collar a month or so ago, when she was spayed, and managed to work her way out of it twice. I gave up on it after two days, and she healed just fine. Now, though, I really need to keep the collar on for at least 10 days, and that's not going to be easy. She just kicks at it with all her strength until it gives up and slides off.

I'm also supposed to keep her indoors, and she doesn't like that a bit. She keeps going to the kitty door and pounding on it with her paws.

And I'm also supposed to keep her confined to a small room as much as possible, to keep her from running or jumping around and tearing out the stitches that way. So I've put her food, drink, and litter box into the bathroom. She doesn't like that much either, and sits in front of the door yowling.

So I'm sitting here in a pair of earplugs. Although she thinks I'm torturing her, I'm just trying to follow doctor's orders and get her healed up.

It's going to be a long two weeks.