I think we had Frank for about three weeks, when he slipped out the front door when I let Rosie The Boy Cat and Morti outside in the early morning. He wasn’t gone out long before he was back at the door wanting to come inside. He was limping, so I picked him up and saw that something had taken quite a chunk out of him at the underarm area of his left front leg.
I had a doctor appointment for myself, so I was not able to take him to the vet right away. As soon as I got home, though, I called my regular vet and asked them if they could see him. They told me they were getting ready to go home so they could not see him. I asked about an appointment for the next morning, which was Saturday, but they told me they were full for the next day. I hung up and started looking for an emergency vet. I found an animal hospital near us, that is open from 8:00 a.m. until 12:00 a.m. every day. Fabgrandpa and I took him right over there.
When the doctor saw Frank, they abraded the wound, put in a drain, and then stitched him up. It took more then 8 stitches for this poor kittie’s leg. They said we should bring him back in 10 days to remove the stitches.
After about three days, the stitches pulled out. Now, Frank was wearing the cone and was in a crate the whole time. Except for 15 minutes twice a day that we took him out of the cage so we could clean it and let him get some exercise, he was crated.
The wound looked terrible so we took him back to the vet, and they stitched it up again. And again, it only took a few days for the stitches to pull out and the wound to gape open. Back to the vet we went. This time, I told them I did not want any more stitches, just tell us how to take care of this at home so we could get Frank better.
The vet told us to clean the wound gently, apply Silver Sulfadizine cream, then cover lightly with gauze, and wrap with that bandage material that they use when they take your blood at a people doctor. Change the bandage every two days. She applied the bandage, and we took him home. And he got that bandage off in less than an hour!
When I replaced the bandage, I covered the wound with gauze, wrapped the bandage material around his leg several times, then wrapped it one time loosely over his back and under his belly, then wrapped around his leg a couple more times. That was yesterday, and the bandage is still on. Seriously, I can bandage this cat better than the vet can.
Frank is also taking an antibiotic, Clavamox. I really hope he will get better this time.
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