Trina's page of Blogginess

Poor little Noe. She's having one of those very few "bad cat days".

We noticed that she was limping yesterday evening. We didn't know what it was, but thought we'd keep an eye on it. This morning, it wasn't any better, and she was clearly uncomfortable. I decided to call my vet in Milpitas and make an appointment for her today.

Why do I go all the way to Milpitas for a vet when I live in San Francisco? My family has used this vet since the mid-80s. He's seen us through (at least) 5 rats, 2 birds, and 3 cats over the years. Dick and I tried a local vet here in SF, but I didn't like it much - they were a much larger office, appointments were harder to come by, and I usually spent a long time waiting in the waiting room. (which was too traumatic to our kitties, who are vet-phobic)

So, it's off to Milpitas to see Dr. Anderson - he's just wonderful with our little guys.

Unfortunately, (as mentioned before) Noe is especially afraid of the doctor's office. We've had bad visits to the vet (in SF) before where we weren't able to have anything done because she was too upset. (ie: hissing, swatting, etc)

The only solution we were able to come up with was to give her a sedation pill before I drive her down to Milpitas (about 1 hour drive). The pill does a good job of sedating her, although it does make her rather disoriented. This worked well last year, when we brought her in for her annual check up, although we had to put her in "the box" to completely sedate her in order to give her her shots. Truthfully, I think this whole ordeal is far more traumatic on me than it is on her. the way I figure it, she just thinks she's having a really bad dream.... :(

It turns out that Noe had an infected wound on the back of her heel - probably had it for a few days, and it got increasingly worse. The doctor cleaned it up, and gave her an antibiotic shot. He also sent me home with antibiotic pills to give her twice daily for the next 7 days.

Poor little things. She's still pretty disoriented from the sedation. She can't decide if she's really angry, or if she needs to be carried and cuddled. She's probably awfully sore still, too.

I'm experiencing some serious Mama-Cat guilt right now....