One day in September I was petting the cats and noticed Apricot had scratched the area right in front of his ears raw. I couldn't see anything wrong with his ears. I hate taking him to the vet because he's so scared of them. He is a "freeze" scared kitty, not a "fight" scared kitty, so he at least has that going for him--no one has to restrain him unduly.
I thought maybe I would trim his nails, as that task was in my to-do list at the moment. (It shows up regularly in the app I use for reminding me to do things.) So I trimmed nails.
And I found Thimble's back foot was bloody and there was this weird growth beneath one of the nails and he was definitely touchy about the area.
Fine. I'll take them to the vet. I got an appointment the next day, and ended up with all three of them because I honestly couldn't figure out how to leave Colby behind without (a) letting him out of the house accidentally while I carried the crate with the other two to the car and the door stays open while I do that, or (b) locking him in one room the entire time I was gone, which would be traumatic.
Apricot peed on them again. I mean, he lost control of his bladder on the way there from fear, and the pee ended up on all three cats. Mental note to do something about this.
Thimble didn't have a growth. That was just his nail bed. It looked like a growth because his nail was almost ripped off completely. In fact it came off in the vet's fingers when she went to see how secure it still was. (She's still embarrassed she did that while I was holding him. Luckily for me I had my eyes closed when I saw she was going to test it. Neither of us expected it to come off in her hand.)
So basically he just tried to declaw himself. Again. It was the other back paw he'd done it to before. And as before, all we could do was let it heal and make sure it didn't get infected. (He's fine, by the way.)
Apricot had a yeast overgrowth in his ears again. So I was taught how to clean them and given a ketoconazole solution to use to clean them. It worked like a charm and no more yeast infection after a week of daily ear cleanings.
But at the vets I casually mentioned a scab on his side near his backbone that he had, because I figured while we're here anyway, she might as well look at it. We both thought it was just from playing with the others. Thimble's a sweet cat and doesn't do things like that on purpose but he could easily do it on accident as he's so strong and doesn't realize it. She took the scab off to make sure it wasn't a puncture wound (it wasn't).
It didn't heal. It just kept getting bigger. Another one popped up. And another. Each started small and slowly grew. None of them would heal.
Two vet visits and a predisone shot later. The wounds are still getting bigger, still not healing, and more are still appearing. The predisone made him throw up repeatedly so no more of that steroid for him. My vet confessed she was completely stumped and had never seen anything like this and sent me to a specialist, a dermatologist for pets.
I am very fortunate to live five minutes from a world-class specialty vet practice. They have everything from dentistry to cardiology to surgery to oncology ... and dermatology.
My poor rescued feral kitty. He was on an antihistamine to try to reduce the itching (he had washed a spot raw on his tummy from the itching by this point). But antihistamines don't work all that well in cats. They don't know why.
Dr. B- examined him and gave me three options. It was either a deep fungal infection, an allergic reaction, or, and she thought this was a remote possibility, cancer. The spots had a specific type of white blood cell mixed in with all the scab crud that are allergy related.
She did a biopsy a week later. She only does a local anesthetic and gives them a sleepy gas to knock them out only as much as needed. She said they didn't even have to knock him out completely. He just lay there and watched them take punches out of him. (That's a biopsy punch; kind of like a hole punch without the other side, I think.)
After that he had a (different) steroid pill. By this time I had put him in a cone after first trying a surgical onesie. He is an old fashioned cat, apparently, who doesn't believe cats should wear clothes, and he wouldn't go to the bathroom while wearing it, so he leaked from his full bladder before I realized what was going on. So a cone it was.
I found a clear plastic cone online for him so the others couldn't sneak up on him. Thimble is Apricot's best friend; they're great buddies. But Thimble is also a bit of a practical joker and I could just see this turning out badly if I restricted Apricot's field of vision.
I had to get a second cone because Apricot had a bad tendency to get a drink and soak the fabric edge of the cone and then go use the litterbox and get litter coated all over the edge. So I'd put the second cone on, take the dirty cone off, clean the dirty one, and let it dry until I had to swap them again. Usually about every two days.
The steroid really helped. The lesions started healing. And then the biopsy results came back faster than anticipated. Apricot was allergic to something.
Seriously? That is one nasty allergic reaction.
They'd taken a blood sample to do an allergy test if such was needed when he was under for the biopsy, so now they sent that off.
Apricot is allergic to dust mites and molds. Just like me.
Instead of an antihistamine, there is a drug that goes even farther up the chain of events that leads to the active allergic reaction and stops it at the source. My ears pricked up. What is this drug and why don't I have access to it?!?
Oh. Because it's cyclosporine. It shuts off the immune system. They're not going to give that to a human just for allergies. Phooey.
But for a cat that doesn't have to interact with anyone besides the other cats who live with him and also don't interact with anyone, it's okay to use.
So he got that pill while we weaned him off the steroid, and as a long term solution ... can you guess?
He's getting allergy shots. Just like me. For practically the same things. Only I have to give him his allergy shots.
Luckily he's absolutely fine with me sticking a needle into his shoulder fat. I've been told they don't have a lot of nerves there and it seems to be true. I tell him it's time for his shot and show him the (already prepared) needle and syringe and he just shrugs and lets me stick him.
And having had allergy shots myself for years now, I'm familiar with how they work and all that goes with it. At work I use syringes (without needles) all the time so I'm really familiar with those too. His are smaller, I'll grant you, and have a needle at the end, but the action of filling / emptying the syringe is very similar.
I was convinced he had cancer. What else could non-healing lesions be? I'd never even heard of an allergic reaction like that. Thank goodness humans don't appear to have that reaction. It was horrible just to watch much less imagine having it.
So Apricot is off the steroid. He doesn't appreciate the cyclosporine every morning but he lets me do it. He hid under the couch twice but I had previously discovered I could actually tip the couch over, and that's more traumatic than the pill, so he's stopped doing that. I tried giving him a treat reward afterwards but he doesn't want it. <sigh>
He's building up the allergy shots to the maintenance level (humans have to do this too) so his shots are every three days but once on maintenance, which is in about two weeks, he'll only have to have them once a week.
The shots take a shorter time to work than humans, too, which is a good thing given our comparative lifespan. The end goal is to make it so he doesn't have to take the cyclosporine or have the shots.
All this medical work was very expensive though.
And it's definitely worth it to have a happy, relatively healthy kitty.
PS. Thimble's been having trouble with this whole thing since Apricot's his buddy and has been more needy and acting out more, just like a toddler. Poor baby. I'm trying to reassure him but his grasp of English, while impressive for a non-human, isn't up to explaining allergies.
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