Sunday, May 22, 2016

Colby Visits a New Kitty Doctor

Colby wasn't particularly happy to be riding in the car again, especially by himself in the kangaroo pouch in my lap. Since I haven't really taken the boys lots of places, I still revert to thinking I have Pippin, and the pouch was his favorite way to travel. Colby would have preferred the crate. I shall have to remember that.

But he only really made a few comments during the drive. It was just that said comments were made into my ear as he was resting his paws on my shoulder. Yes, it will be safer for him in the crate as well, I do realize that.

I pulled into the parking lot of the new vet. I had wanted to interview a couple vets, see how I liked them, before having to bring the cat(s) with me, but Colby's ear twitching, scratching, and head shaking had made me move up my timetable.

This vet's office was in an office building with all the entrances to the outside, like a strip mall for offices. Inside was a nice, cozy, small waiting room which implied that (a) you wouldn't be waiting long since they didn't have room for a lot of people in it, and (b) it wasn't going to echo and drive me crazy with the sound sensory input like the old vet's office. I was instantly leaning toward "yes" for keeping this vet.

Colby didn't verbalize anything but he really wanted to leave, and wasn't staying curled up in the pouch. This meant, of course, that everyone could see his true size and they were all amazed. 'He's beautiful,' were some comments I got, as well as the more usual, 'he's huge.'

They took me back into a room almost right away (I didn't even have a chance to sit down) and there we waited for just a short while. Colby decided to go find a better hiding place than the pouch, and I let him. The room had a large window with a window seat in front of it; two vinyl chairs, the sort that look padded and sort of are; a cabinet and counter in the corner; and an exam table that folded down to give extra room when it wasn't needed.
Colby investigates the counter

Colby launched onto the counter. It barely had enough room for him with the row of containers on one side ("treats", "dog treats", "hypoallergenic treats", and "q-tips"). He knocked over a small unlabeled container onto the floor that turned out to have liquid in it, but it must not have been much because I didn't see it.

The vet tech came in shortly after Colby jumped down and I pointed out the fallen container and apologized for it--I said I wouldn't have let him jump up there if I'd realized it didn't have a lid. She said no problem and wiped up the liquid off the floor with paper towels. Several paper towels. Oops.

I asked her how they felt about breed cats there. Apparently, they love them. There's a local Maine Coon breeder who uses them as her vet. (I didn't know there was a local breeder at all. Perhaps the breeder is from the TICA side of the show cat world, and I wasn't looking there when I was looking for breeders as I prefer the CFA look to the Maine Coons. And she could also have started breeding in just the two years, as well.)

This is good. I felt the old vet had been searching to find something, anything, wrong with Colby or Thimble to prove that all breeders were bad and we should all be rescuing cats. (As Max proves, a rescue isn't always going to work out for me, given my situation. As Apricot proves, sometimes a rescue can be wonderful.)

I also asked what they would say when I brought the three in for their yearly exams and shots and told them Apricot wasn't getting any of the vaccines including rabies. She said they'd ask why (I told her) and that they'd advise me of the rabies being state law, but I could refuse it, and then if Apricot bit someone that would come back on me, not the vet.

She was a bit surprised I think when I was emphatically enthusiastic about her response. Because that was the other reason I didn't like our old vet anymore. When I'd told her Apricot wasn't getting any shots, last december, their response had been "okay."

Um, no. You respect my wishes, sure, because in the end I'm paying the bills, but you make very sure I understand the implications of said wishes before you let me make the final decision.

The vet tech took a q-tip and swabbed out some of the nasty black crap in Colby's ears, one tip per ear, and then broke the handle to the q-tip used for the left ear. Neat way to label them. I've seen vets do that before but I always forget about it until I see it done again.

She took the swabs away to look at them under a microscope, and we were alone again for a little while. So I got down on the floor with Colby.

He came over and got a hug and petted and told he was a brave cat, and then he went off exploring again. He was still searching for a place to hide, but there was a hint of sheer exploration in his movements, too, showing he was getting more comfortable.

When the vet came in, she talked for a little while too. About Colby, and his kitty friends, and how he was doing, and why I was changing vets ... general stuff. And Colby went over to her and rubbed her hands and let her pet him and scratch behind his ears, and then came back to me where I'd settled on the window seat.
Colby on the window seat

I made much of him and said he was a brave kitty and all that, meanwhile mouthing at the vet "that was unusual!" He's never done that before, just let a stranger pet him so quickly after meeting her.

She examined him all over then, "officially", although when she'd been scratching his ears she'd been looking at them with sharp eyes, too. The vet tech came back in and said he had cocci + bacteria in the left ear too numerous to count, and the same in the right ear with a hint of yeast as well.

I had asked if Colby could have "caught" the ear infection from Apricot, who always has a low-level yeast infection in his ears. (I couldn't get rid of it with the Tresaderm and he hated it so badly that I'd quit giving it to him.) To my relief, the chances of that happening were almost nil.

Then she listened to his heart. I told her about the other vet saying he had a quiet heart murmur and that "quiet" wasn't even a heart murmur description. She said that it was, sort of. Heart murmurs come in grades, 1-6, and a grade 1/6 heart murmur was much quieter than the roar of a grade 6/6. But the other vet hadn't even mentioned grades, much less told me what grade she thought it was.

Colby was being difficult. I said, diffidently, that if they'd let him come up over my shoulder with his front paws he'd stop moving around so much, as that was what he wanted. So that's what we did. Sure enough, as soon as he could get his head against mine and his paws wrapped around my shoulder, he calmed down, and if I angled my body away from his a little, the vet could get the stethoscope in the gap.

She listened for a long time. Finally she said that she didn't hear a heart murmur at all. So, I thought to myself, either the other vet was making herself hear something for the goal of finding "something" wrong with Colby, or he grew out of it. Ginger later said (when I texted her the result), that he probably grew out of it. Developmental heart murmurs are common because not all the bits of a cat grow at the same rate, including heart bits.

They gave me Tresaderm for Colby's ears. Oh joy, oh rapture. Another session of ear doping. Maybe Colby would be more willing than Apricot?

I got the vet tech to show me how to do it. This time I didn't have three-quarters of my brain going nuts from anxiety, and I was able to process the visual information much better. She did one ear, and I did the other, and it was a lot easier than Apricot. Partly, though, this is due to the much bigger ear!

I like this vet's office, and I like this vet. I think we'll be going here from now on.

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