Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Kitty Ophthalmologist

Well if I thought Floyd couldn't get worse I was wrong.

In the evening two days after my last post Floyd's eye started to look worse. I work a full time job and simply cannot monitor him with the bears, they kept taking off his cone, and I was afraid that because of this eyes were getting more damaged. The next morning I dropped him off at the regular vet for hospitalization. This way I knew he would get his medication on time and the cone would stay on. Mid-morning the vet called and told me that Floyd needed to see the ophthalmologist as his eye was melting. Melting! So I made an emergency appointment and took him that afternoon.

The ophthalmologist was just like one you would visit for humans. They dyed his eye, used a scope to zoom in and out on both eyes. Turns out that Floyd has ulcers in both eyes and has lost vision in the left eye but the kicker is that this is all being caused by the herpes he has in both eyes. No the herpes is not inter-species so we do not have anything to worry about. Trust me. I asked the Doctor, the Nurse and then called back after I left and asked the Nurse again.

So poor Floyd has herpes in his eyes causing them to melt and he had lost vision in his left eye. The ophthalmologist told me that we were going to try a very intense treatment and if it didn't work Floyd would need surgery. $1,300 for one eye, $1,700 for two. Uh.

I immediately told her that surgery was not an option. If I had the money I would have no hesitation but living on one income has it's limitations. The appointment and medications alone were unspeakably vulgar. They gave us three different medications to be dropping into his eyes every hour and a different antibiotic once a day. He needed to be seen again on Monday to check and see if it was working.

I basically threatened the girls with beatings if they even touched Floyd's collar much less took it off. They are beating free.

We did the intense treatment over the weekend and on Monday Hubby took Floyd back to the ophthalmologist. Same practice different doctor, asked Hubby how he thought Floyd was doing. I so would have went off on him. I'M PAYING YOU $125 AN HOUR FOR YOUR OPINION NOT MINE! Nonetheless.

Apparently Floyd, being an awesome kitten that he is, is fairing well. Even better than well. He went back to the ophthalmologist again for a week check up and the first thing out of the ophthalmologist's mouth was "Wow." They backed his medication down. The ophthalmologist thinks that a month from now he will have full vision with only slight scaring.

And the best part...the "cone of shame" has been removed. Hubby said he groomed himself for a half hour when they got home.

He seems to be doing very well. In fact he's been getting naughtier so I think he is feeling good.

1 comment:

  1. Wow... this is insane!! This is the cat you JUST got right??
    We got one of our kittens at our local humane society and he came home and was sick sick sick with a cold of some sort and I was really concerned he wouldn't make it and they told me that we could bring him back within a certain amount of days if the kitty didn't get over it and we wanted to trade him in - horrifying to think about, but they would have healed him and then readopted out.
    Luckily, we didn't have to worry about it and he got better on his own and he's the greatest kitty EVER!

    Good luck with your cat issues-it's pretty traumatizing to have to deal with something like this right off the bat!! Emotionally, mentally and financially!

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