Madness
This weekend was totally awesome. It was so wonderful to see my family. My parents immediately fell in love with Jack and Jet. “Our grandcats are sooo adorable!”
The only bummer of this weekend was Jack’s visit to the vet. Brookfeild Vetrenary Hospital has seen me frequently as of late and we are already of a first name basis. Initially, Jack was diagnosed as having a normal case of ringworm. First of all, for those not familiar, ringworm is not a worm at all, but more like a feline case of athlete’s foot. It’s more annoying than dangerous. It’s common for shelter kitties and I was given a topical medication to treat him.
After I dropped my parents at Sea-tac and said my goodbyes, I thought it’d be wise to set up an appointment for Jet, just to be sure he didn’t get ringworm from Jack. The next morning I noticed Jack still wasn’t improving and I found more skin lesions on him. Although he was in good spirits, I was worried so I took him with me to Jet’s appointment.
This time we had a different doctor (the husband of our first doctor.) He looked over Jack again and determined that there is a 50/50 chance that he could have ringworm, but he wasn’t positive and he didn’t want to give Jack the oral medicine (a more dramatic treatment) until he was sure it wasn’t just a food allergy. The oral medicine has a chance of affecting Jack’s liver if he doesn’t really have ringworm.
So at 7 this morning I dropped Jackie off at the vet for a biopsy. They’re going to take skin samples from four places on his little body to analyze. He said that it wasn’t a terrible surgery (but isn’t any surgery going to be terrible!?). The worst part was that I arrived at the same time as the alarm systems guy, who was coming by to check the alarm horn. What are the odds? Jack was already shaken up from having the nurse crouch over him with a shaver in her hands and then the alarm went off while a slightly overweight man went from room to room checking the alarm lights. Poor Jack! I was just about in tears as I left him.
All I can do now is pray and wait for the vet to call me and let me know how he is. He goes under the knife around 10:30am and I’ve scheduled to pick him up around 3:30 (the earliest they would let me.)
Please pray that all goes well and that Jackie will recover to tip top shape soon!
As far as Jet’s health, as far as the vet’s concerned, Jet is healthy except for some dry skin on his bum (kitten dandruff) which is probably just a result of his shelter diet and transitioning to his new food. The doctor gave me a vitamin E supplement with fish oil and stuff to add to their food for a shiny coat and healthy scalp. They also gave me a special shampoo which I’m supposed to bath him with. I figured I should probably get some of those thick gloves that Eagle handlers use before I get to that task. Once I’ve mastered the art of cat bathing, all should be well. But in addition to that, Jet also had build-up in his ears from the ear mite medicine the shelter gave him. So I also have to clean his ears every few days with this special ear cleaning solution. I won’t even get into the details about that. I’ll just say this – it’s a very messy process. So, with all that in a few weeks, Jet will be one shiny, studly feline.
