HIYA!! SAVANNAH HERE!!!
I thought I outta update my readers on why you haven’t seen many photos or participation from our sweet little Katie. She has been battling some kind’a bacterial infection that has taken over 10 of her 16 claw sheaths. We have been trying to treat this for months now. Her Vet sent in skin scraping for culture testing and she does indeed have a bacterial infection. But— the “why” is eluding our Vet. And Doc K is the best!
4 weeks ago Now
You can see in the photo from 4+weeks ago, that our cat litter was encrusted on her claw sheath and when Mom L pulled that clump away, it was oozing puss. And it bled a bit too. In the “now” photo (apologies for the blur) you can see that the skin around the claw and sheath are pink and healthy. But, the claw is discolored. Katie has had 3 long acting antibacterial injections over the last couple of months. And she has been on some nasty liquid antibiotic (Orbax) for the last two weeks.
You can see that precious Katie doesn’t much like this yucky stuff. And you can see that she is very depressed and sad. You see, Katie has never become comfortable with being picked up. And she has never sat in a lap. She allows Dad P to pet her every night and she sometimes sleeps between his or Mom L’s legs at night and when Mom L takes an afternoon nap. Katie, if you recall, was rescued by Mom L and Dad P from a horrible hoarding place when she was only 5-6 months old. She had already had kittens; Mom L could see she had been nursing within the last weeks. Mom L also found dead kittens, barely days old, in the closet; likely Katie’s.
All that said, Katie has to be confined in Dad P’s office so he and Mom L can administer her meds and Mom L cleans all of her claws with an antiseptic pad every day. This infection spread to most of her claw sheaths. She is improving but what happens now that the antibiotics are finished?
By confining her to one place, we can test different litter with her to learn if it is the wheat clumping litter we have used for years that has caused this to happen to her. We are now on our third litter trial; silica non-clumping and her claws are looking better. But she still has the meds in her system so we won’t know for sure until the next week or so. Next we will try to learn if this might be a food allergy. So disturbing.
We sure will appreciate all the POTP (Power of the Paw) you send her. She is very depressed, misses her play buddy Eowyn and we know she thinks she is being punished. We all have leaky eyes for our darling little Katie. Our guest bed is in Dad P’s office and he has been sleeping with her the whole time she is confined. That is over two and a half weeks now. Katie does play with Dad P’s footsies under the covers at night, and she comes up to his chest for snuggles and pets and she sleeps with him all night. But when the sun arrives and daylight begins to show itself, Katie retreat to her hiding spots in Dad P’s closet. And she remains in there all day. When anyone enters the room during the day, and Katie is out on the tower or bed or Dad P’s chair, Katie slinks back to her hidey spots. Breaking all our hearts.
PAW PATS, SAVANNAH
Savannah's Paw Tracks 