Gross Kitty Stuff

** Warning, the next few lines will contain details that are, well, just gross!** A few days ago, I mentioned that I had to take one of our kitties to the vet. Tuesday night, we noticed that this particular kitty had a swollen place on her jaw. It looked like she had a golf ball hidden under her skin. I rubbed it but didn't feel anything. I started to think it was sort of tumor that had grown overnight (yes, I know, dramatic....that's how I think!). I told hubby about it and he agreed that we should keep an eye on it. Before bedtime that same night, we noticed that she had scratched and there was a very small patch of hair missing. By morning, she was scratching more and eventually I noticed blood on the carpet. I searched for her and sure enough, when I found her she had scratched a much larger place and now there was blood and other "stuff" all over the fur on her face. When I looked closer, I could see flesh. It was so nasty. I got a rag and dabbed her face with it and I could tell that whatever this was had infection in it. As my hubby would say, "gag a maggot off a gut wagon".

I called the vet up and I was on my way within fifteen minutes. When we got there, he showed me that she had a small hole, the size of a pen tip, in that area. Apparently she was poked by another one of our cats without our knowledge. There were no scratches. Just this tiny hole. He explained that it was abscessed and that's why all of the beautiful yellow stuff was coming out. I think I just threw up a little in my mouth. The vet shaved the hair off her jaw and split the wound open wider so that it would drain more. As in drain more yellow stuff....and blood. Insert gagging noises here. He gave her a shot of penicillin, washed the wound with peroxide, and applied antibiotics directly onto the wound. Lucy, the kitty, didn't fight him at all. This is huge since she obviously has mental issues. She is very scared of people, besides us. Sometimes she's scared of us. We have no idea why because she was born inside and has always been able to do what she wanted.

The best part? Well, the wound could not be covered. The vet also said it would look much worse before it started to heal. Great. Not only do I have to deal with blood and yellow stuff getting in the house, but I have to look at this nasty thing too! Wonderful. Forty-five minutes after we arrived at the vet's office, we were home and Lucy found a spot and went to sleep. By Friday, the wound had scabbed over so I'm not cleaning up nasty stuff. Yay! The funny thing lies in the fact that we have come to accept. Our home is a magnet for strange, homeless, under fed, deformed cats. Seriously. We have five cats. Only one is truly ours (we bought that one) and it is the only truly normal one. She is cute, has all of her tail, and has no mental disorder. Of the other four, three are bob-tailed cats. The one that does have a tail has constantly runny eyes. Apparently that's common for a wild cat. To prove my point, you'll remember that a sixth cat showed up here about a month ago and he has absolutely NO tail. Where do they come from???? Is there a colony of funky tailed cats out there somewhere? How did they find their way to our house? How can we make them stop coming?

I really don't exaggerate these stories. You would have to see these misfits to believe how unbelievable it is! It's pure madness, I tell ya!