In August we adopted Zara the cat! I wrote about it here: Zara.
She’s has the best temperament for us, and we’ve all absolutely fallen in love with her.
Unfortunately, she came to us wounded. I mentioned her first vet visit was prompted by a paw wound, and that led to about eight weeks of various types of care for that. Antibiotics, a foot bandage for a couple weeks, ointments, creams. By late October, we were grateful to have that behind us, but another problem became apparent at the end of September: she had a tail wound too.
Early on we thought she had merely had a broken tail, but when a chunk of fur fell off and exposed a bloody tail wound, we realized the lump on her tail was a lot more. She saw an emergency vet in Dublin that day because I panicked: my cat is falling apart! From there, we went through more attempts with antibiotics, wound care, and added a plush “donut” to her cone configuration. I even tried wrapping her tail and dousing it in flavored spray that’s supposed to deter her, but she was able to brave the bad smell and taste to remove it (this didn’t surprise anyone, but I had to try!).
Once we sized up on the cone to a Small, I bought raised food dishes so she could still eat with her cone on.
Ultimately, I had to get her a Medium size which got us into dog cone territory. I had to punch bonus holes in it fit around her neck, and added a small harness and medical gauze to hold it in place. That’s when we finally got her to stop biting her wound so it could heal.
Poor kitty, it’s a really big cone!
We changed out her litter box to an open one that’s easier for her to enter, though she did develop the unfortunate habit of peeing next to her litter box instead of inside it, which we cleaned up for a few days before MJ went out and got a case of pee pads, which we now just replace every time she uses it.
At almost every other vet visit, the various vets we saw would quietly mention that partial tail amputation was an option. A surgical removal would heal more quickly and it would be over, and likely less expensive when it was all said and done. It was nice to know there was a healthy escape plan out if we really couldn’t get the wound to heal, but we wanted to save her tail!
We saw a dermatologist across the bay in Mountain View who did a tissue culture and that’s how we discovered she had a MRSA infection and that’s why it wasn’t healing. Fortunately, they didn’t see signs of a deeper problem, like a skin or neurological disease versus just wounds that needed to heal. Another round of stronger antibiotics, and ointments!
In November we started doing weekly Phovia light treatments, which I was incredibly skeptical of, but the dermatologist felt strongly about. Thankfully, I found a clinic less than 15 minutes from home that would do it, instead of making the trek out to Mountain View. Those treatments were paused when we went to Philadelphia for three weeks over the December holidays and she stayed with a pet sitter, and I’m sure that delayed healing more. We resumed treatments in mid January and finally started to see significant healing. In January, we also met with a vet who did Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) treatments, but thankfully by the time the [prepaid] appointment rolled around, her healing had progressed to a place where they felt it wasn’t necessary. We continued the Phovia treatments through the end of January.
Today, she was given the all clear to remove the cone! Her wound has scarred over and aside from a hint of dryness, it looks really good. Once the cone is off, she didn’t immediately target her tail for grooming, which is good news.
Cone-free drive home!
It’s been a lot. The vet visits are during my work hours, so I’ve had to work a lot early mornings to stay on top of work these past couple months, thankfully I have that flexibility. Having a cat in a cone for this long, especially one that’s so big that it’s not designed for cats, has been a challenge for all of us. She’s less able to snuggle with the cone on, it makes playtime harder and I’m always worried she’ll take a tumble and hurt herself somehow, and I’m sure it has been no good for her neck and spine. Fortunately, she’s young and this will all soon be a distant memory.
My biggest regret is not getting the bigger cone earlier, since the smaller cone + donut only prevented her from getting to her foot, and likely made the tail healing several weeks longer. I was just really worried about logistics of eating, relieving herself, and generally navigating the house day to day with the larger the cone, so I really wanted to avoid it.
What’s next? We need to ween her off kitten food, since she’s a year old now. We’ll also work on the litter box situation, the vet suggested in a few days to put a box with the old clay litter out next to the pellet litter box so she can get used to it again and maybe she’ll switch over on her own. I’m really hoping that cone-free life and changing the litter also nudges her back to peeing in the box instead of next to it. We’re also slowly re-introducing her cat tents and caves, which we had to put away since she was getting stuck and using them to remove her cone. Hopefully all will be back to normal within a few weeks.
And here’s hoping she has an injury-free future! The vets we’ve seen along the way are convinced she was hurt during her life as an outdoor cat, and without all the risks of outdoor life, she should live a happily wound-free life now.