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Phantom returns home weak but happy while Mee needs emergency surgery
IT’S A few days before New Year’s as I write this column, and we already have good news and bad news to take us beyond January 1.
Phantom has just come home from the vet’s. In terms of health, it’s been a bad year for this unfortunate cat. Every time we think he’s fully recovered, something else goes wrong.
Last week, the vet discovered that the terrible tumour on his gum has started to shrink again, but she also found an abscess right next to it. How much pain poor Phantom must have been going through.
The vet kept him at the clinic to continue his steroid treatment and to give him antibiotic shots for the abscess.
When I went to see him, he looked extremely depressed, more so than any other time he was at the clinic.
“Just let me take him home,” I said. “He’ll get better more quickly in familiar surroundings.”
The vet, however, wanted to keep him with her. She didn’t think I could give the boy his medicine. It really is difficult. He simply refuses to let anyone open his mouth to pop that pill inside. At the clinic, they just inject him, which he doesn’t like either, but he can’t avoid those jabs in the rear.
Nevertheless, as soon as the abscess disappeared thanks to the antibiotics, the vet let him come home.
The former hulk looks so thin. No longer is he eight kilos, not even seven. He’s down to six and a half.
He’s not 100-per-cent well, but he’s happy, stretching out on the floor, then stretching out on the bed, then moving to his food bowl.
Mee, the part-chow who lives next door, has not been so lucky. Just yesterday, she came close to death.
Last month, J noticed that Mee was drinking more water and urinating more often. J didn’t seem worried, but she did consult a vet (not mine) about the problem.
I don’t know what the vet told her, but I do know that Mee wasn’t present during the consultation. I wonder how the vet felt providing advice without being able to examine the patient.
On the other hand, it really is difficult transporting Mee. Even the “pet taxi” J tried to hire refused. Mee is simply too uncontrollable.
The vet gave J some pills for Mee, but J said the pills weren’t working. Possibly they were antibiotics, but J didn’t know and discontinued giving them to the dog when she didn’t see instant improvement.
Then, Mee began bleeding. J thought she was simply in heat, even when the discharge developed a bad smell.
I tried to warn J about Mee’s condition. Mee hasn’t been neutered but has never given birth. Now she was in danger of developing an infection of the uterus called “pyometra”, which can also affect cats and humans.
This illness is life-threatening.
J, of course, didn’t listen to me, and why should she? I’m not a vet, after all. I think she also hesitated because she didn’t know how to transport her dog, and she felt that paying a pet taxi Bt200 one way was too expensive.
She waited another week. Yesterday, she finally found a friend with a car who could help. This time, she took Mee to my vet, who immediately told her that the dog needed surgery urgently to remove her uterus because of the pyometra.
I doubt if J slept at all last night, and this morning, she promptly phoned the vet to find out how Mee was.
Even with such a major operation, Mee’s condition was good. I would have left her at the clinic another day or so, but J has just brought her home.
A bit weak and unsteady, Mee is nevertheless staggering around, a big smile on her face. J is smiling too.
