I had shut Koa into my bedroom. Theo sat on the other side of the door pathetically wailing and rattling the door, crying and crying. Koa walked around, rubbing on furniture, purring, sniffing, rubbing, walking.
Given that the Benadryl was staying in the bowl and not getting into the cat, I kept thinking it was about time to call the vet and talk about Plan B. Eventually, Koa showed interest in a toy, a long string of tie-dyed fleece with a handle attached. I wound it through her carrier and played with her and the carrier for about 15 minutes. She kept positioning herself so that she could run away if she had to. My heart was pounding. I realized I had one chance and if I blew it, I would then need to call the vet.
Finally, I grabbed her by the nape of her neck, stuffed her into the top-loading carrier, and slammed the lid down, locking her in. She was stunned and upset and cried. It turns out she has a voice beyond the tiny meep meep sound she makes. She actually knows how to meow.
I bundled her into the car, my heart breaking. Ooh, I'm going to pay for this for weeks, I expect. Trust has been destroyed or at least will be questioned very closely for a long time to come. She meowed for about half the trip, and then got very very quiet.
We got to the vet and were shown to the exam room quickly. I convinced the tech not to take Koa out and weigh her. (When I first talk about Koa, people tend to think that she's "just shy" or "doesn't like to be picked up. They don't realize how extensive the problem is -- she's always watching her back and she doesn't allow herself to be picked up.) I gave the tech as much of a history as I could and mentioned the priorities I had for the visit. Tech Matt came in. We were left to wait. I peeked into the carrier and there was Koa with wide pupils, hunched up, and not breathing well. She was definitely terrified.
And finally Dr. Randy came in, carrying rabies vaccine. I explained that that was about the third priority. I convinced him that he had one chance and if he missed, Koa would be up on a shelf somewhere and we'd be very late going home.
He chose to believe me and disassembled the carrier so that we could easily lift the top off when it was time. He disappeared for a while and came back with a little syringe containing a sedative, one that serves as a "don't care" drug (or, as they said so succintly, that causes "disassociation"). Faster than a cat strike, he lifted up the corner of the carrier, jabbed her in the rear end, then closed it again. We covered up the carrier and let Koa "cook" for a few minutes.
When he came back, we unwrapped the carrier. We took the lid off. He gently lifted Koa out. Koa was awake, a little perturbed, but didn't seem able to care. She let the professionals do their job.
In priority order, they:-- cut the giant claw (right), about 3/8" of which was sticking into her paw pad. The entry site was quite raw. (It was the pointy end that was sticking right through the skin.) She had bitten the top of her paw to get some relief; that was chewed up too.
-- clipped her nails (hooray)
-- looked in her mouth and saw some rotten teeth and loads of tartar. It looked like she'd been chewing tuna fish and not swallowed. Gross.
-- gave her a rabies shot. She's not an outdoor kitty, but in this state, there's a law that says that cats must be innoculated.
They also gave her a full physical and pronounced her very healthy. They took a baseline sample of blood. They expressed tremendous surprise that she's so sweet natured given the tremendous pain she was probably in, both because of the claw and her teeth. And they told me several times that she's absolutely beautiful, which she is.
At first they thought I should bring her back in a couple of weeks for dental work. I soon convinced them that *that* was a silly idea -- it'll probably be at least a year, if not two, before I can get her back there again.
So they kept her overnight and tomorrow she'll have her mouth cleaned out. They'll also remove that weirdly positioned claw (yikes, my cat's being declawed!) and probably clean up her paw a little. For now, she'll manage the rest of her nails, the ones she can retract.
It's odd not having her here. I'll miss snuggling with her when I crawl into bed tonight and snuggling with her again when I wake up tomorrow. On the other hand, this all had to be done and she will be in a much better place when she comes home. For that, I am very happy.
2 comments:
Kudos to Koa and everyone else involved.
Poor Koa - poor you for having to put her through that! I'm glad she is getting the veterinary attention she needs and hopefully the trust will return quickly.
And, yow, that claw. Zoe had a claw do that once, though it didn't go quite so far. And, of course, we could manage (with fairly significant effort) to hold her and clip her nails.
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