The Neighbour’s Cat Won

[fr]

Morsure de chat. Pas mon chat: chat du voisin que j'ai acculé (chez moi, pour le leur ramener) même après qu'il m'ait prévenu à grands coups de griffe qu'il était trop paniqué pour venir tranquillement. Moralité: les chats ont de longues dents pointues et ne se les lavent pas.

[en]

Thanks to everybody for their sympathy and wishes of speedy recovery!

The Neighbour's Cat Won

Not much typing. Cat bite. Details later. Nice cat. Not Bagha. Silly Steph.

Some details.

Friday Update:

Cat Bite Update

Infected. Another appointment tonight. I hope they don’t leave me in this huge splint too long. Can’t do anything!

Friday night update:

It Just Gets Better...

Left arm: infected cat bite. They have long sharp canines and don’t like being cornered in a strange place by a strange person. Splint that forbids any use of my hand — will stick around for at least another 2-3 days.

Right arm: catheter. I had 3 doses of antibiotic through IV over the last 24 hours, and am headed for at least that many over the week-end. There are only so many veins in the arm you can stick needles in.

Now, we hope the long canine didn’t go deep enough to infect the bone — or I’m looking at 4-6 weeks of treatment.

Fingers crossed, everybody, please.

Video Update: the story and more details.

How it happened:

The consequences:

Sunday morning update: I can haz fingers!

I Can Haz Fingerz!

Still got the catheter, though it hurts less now the tap is on the outside of my forearm.

Great improvement: fingers on my left hand! I can type somewhat! Things are taking a good turn. Thumb joint still very painful, so I’m a little worried it could be inflamed/infected — but gosh, does it feel good to have part of my hand back.

Sunday evening news: good!

Monday update: shower!

From now onwards, things are on the right track. I can remove my splint if I like, infection seems gone, but it’s still inflamed. So, I can type and do most of what one expects to do with two hands, just a bit slower and more painfully.

11 Comments

  1. Posted 4/25/2008 at 9:07 am | Permalink

    Get well soon. And use the time off to relax a bit :)

  2. Alejandro
    Posted 4/25/2008 at 3:27 pm | Permalink

    Et tu souris tout de même ;)

  3. Posted 4/25/2008 at 4:21 pm | Permalink

    Arff pas pratique ça… vivement les dictaphones pour les blogs…. ;-)

  4. Posted 4/25/2008 at 10:44 pm | Permalink

    wow, that looks bad. get well soon!

  5. Posted 4/25/2008 at 10:47 pm | Permalink

    Sans rire, si tu as besoin de lait ou autre chose n’hesite pas à le dire…

    PS: On t’a déjà dis que tu as un peu le look de Jean-Claude van Damme dans Kickboxer? J’ai du mal à croire que ce chat pesait moins de 10 kilos…

  6. Posted 4/26/2008 at 6:31 am | Permalink

    oh no!

    get well soon!

  7. Posted 4/26/2008 at 10:07 pm | Permalink

    Ca me rapelle une “blague”‘ comment donner un médoc à un chat.
    Bon courage, ça doit être exaspérant… et douloureux !

  8. Antoinette
    Posted 4/27/2008 at 5:22 pm | Permalink

    Toute ma sympathie, j’ai fait 48h d’hôpital entre Noël et Nouvel An pour les mêmes raisons : chatte blessée, rentre en miaulant, moi … “Oh ma pauvre petite, viens donc que je te prenne dans mes bras …” et en moins d’une seconde 4 dents pointues dans mon index droit dont une dent dans le tendon ! infection, main qui gonfle … orthopédiste qui s’inquiète et plâtre plus antibio IV pendant 48h!!! Il m’a fallu 6 semaines pour retrouver une bonne mobilité! Moralité : les chats sont des animaux très propres … sauf leurs dents !!! Bon courage !!!

  9. Posted 4/29/2008 at 9:31 am | Permalink

    Wow.. There is a message to us all.
    Kudos for getting to the hospital so quickly.. Who knows what would have have happened if you had treated it yourself.
    Hoping for a full and speedy recovery.
    Good Luck,
    Christian.

  10. Posted 4/29/2008 at 1:02 pm | Permalink

    Hi Christian! Honestly, it bled a lot and hurt like hell, so it was pretty obvious to me that this was ER material. If I’d waited, my hand would have swollen up even more (the thumb had doubled in size by the time I saw the doctor about an hour after the bite) and the infection would have spread up the arm. By getting IV antibiotics immediately (and the following days) we avoided that (ultimately, that kind of spreading infection leads to blood poisoning).

    The doc told me that the bacteria in cats’ mouths that causes this infection is particularly speedy in making things swell up a lot.

    When I was a kid, I had a bad cat scratch on my other wrist, and I waited the night before going to the ER. By then there was a red line of infection running up my forearm. Spent 2 weeks with my right hand in a splint because of that. Guess that drilled into me that animal bites/scratches, when deep, are a serious matter.

  11. Brian
    Posted 5/1/2008 at 12:03 am | Permalink

    I’ve been bitten/attacked by my own cats several times, of which only one got massively infected - the rest did nothing to me. The infected instance was so badly infected that my fingers could not flex. Draining the pus was the only thing that helped, and I got a tetanus shot just because of the immobility. I guess I’ve been very lucky compared to you.

    If you had 5-6 wounds from just one bite, those back ones got you, which are meant for cutting/cracking bones, and they are the biggest carriers of bacteria (plaque buildup houses it nicely.) Less exposure to oxygen, cleaning, etc.

    Good luck and speedy recovery!

3 Trackbacks

  1. By Cats - a cautionary tale at Blog My Wiki! on 4/25/2008 at 11:43 pm

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