Charlie Ahole, the asshole cat, right? The little bugger that tries to make the other cats flinch and run and when they do, he chases, laughing his wicked little bully boy laugh the entire time. Then when he's called on it, he jumps up on my work table, gives a little meow as if to say "what? I didn't do anything!" and purrs.
Last week, Sagwa (another cat with issues, he's the kitty who sent Mario to the vet after a fight when Mario was new here) decided he was going to stalk Charlie. And stalk, he did. For hours. More than once I admonished him, chasing him away from Charlie's path and telling him to knock it off. Picking him up and putting him outside. But he didn't stop. This would come to no good end.
There was a fight in the bedroom. Brian stopped it, pushing me out of the way (he had on boots, I had on heavy socks). He stopped it by putting a boot between the two of them and breaking it up. Charlie ran into the family room, up onto my work table. I told him this wasn't his fault and checked him over for damage. There was a little blood on him, I think his tongue got scratched, it seems a little bloody, but nothing major. Sagwa was chased into a different room and I found him and looked him over. He was limping a little.
Monday, he was limping a lot. He would put no weight on his front leg at all, he sat there holding it up in the air. Damn it. Abscess. I knew it. Brian asked if we should take him to the vet's office. I told him not just yet, let's see what I can do first. I started him on the clindamycin that I'd gotten for Mystie (she didn't take it). I gently felt around on his leg, looking for the scab. The leg was pretty puffy from the elbow to the shoulder. Pus build up from the white blood cells attacking the site of the bite doing what they could to contain the intruder saliva cooties, but had no place to go, so they just backed up under the skin. I was pretty sure I found it and I pulled it off (easy, there was still fur attached). It was very tender for him and I knew he felt like crap. I lightly squeezed around the area and he let me know that he'd rather I didn't do that. A little growl, a little show of teeth on my hand, but I just grabbed some skin at the back of his neck and held his head away from me. I decided to go the soaking route. Yesterday, I mixed some epsom salts in warm water and soaked a clean wash cloth in the bowl. I wrapped the cloth around his wound. He really didn't like this very much, but I held it there for about five or ten minutes, then let up. Nothing came out (which was why I did it in the first place, I wanted this thing to drain if at all possible). I would do this as needed, until the abscess burst or the swelling went down on its own. Time would tell. But he slept for quite a while, then got up and hobbled in to the laundry room where he used the litter box, back out onto the sofa and back to sleep. The next time he woke up, he started grooming.
Yesterday evening he was in the office on the copy machine, a fairly hoppy place to get to, a fair amount of climbing for a cat with a sore leg. I dosed him with more meds. He was pretty resistent to this, but it needed to be done.
And this morning? He's not limping at all. Amazing. I'll keep him on the antibiotic for another five days and he should be okay.
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