Hospitalization

Exactly one week ago today I made a serious mistake when walking my cat.  This is a very sad story. I shall try to tell it as much in detail as I can.

I live in an apartment which is located right next to a major road, a parking lot, and the apartment permits cats and dogs to live here. There are more dogs here than cats and most cats are indoors but I always took  my cat out in the morning to get exercise and to sniff and snoop at any and everything that he wanted.   I placed a harness which is a bungee type harness so that it fits around his shoulders instead of around his neck, and had a bungee leash so that it could be extended. Onto that leash I added two other leashes so that he had an extra long leash to give him lots of room to be far away from me whenever I held it.

I had noticed that when I took Marcello in that he had a look in his eye which often looked mean, cruel, and nasty. He has a disposition which is split personality: mean and nasty or very sweet and loving, kiss and lick anyone and everyone if he could.  But his mean side bothered me and I noticed that when we walked at times that it would suddenly come over him. His eyes would change color, his facial shape change even into a mean,nasty bad cat look that really is intimidating and frightening. He is a mean cat and bad cat many times, and I was always aware of it so that I protected myself whenever I could see it come on.  It would come on so that he would turn his eyes into narrow little slits and he would snarl meanly. I would say stop that. Sometimes I would even pet him saying calm down now.  But he could be dangerous, and I learned early on that he could bite me. I suffered a bad arm bite one time when trying to put his harness on him.  I should have then made certain that he would not be around me but I foolishly kept him as his sweet side seemed to adore me.

I kept him away from other animals because he is aggressive and can be dangerous if threatened and frightened.

So I  used the harness often to carry him with his face away from me so that he could not attack me. Unfortunately, last Sunday he took me down the alley path where his mean personality suddenly came on, and he began to snap and snarl.  We were almost home and I wanted to go home but he seemed not to want to go that way, and began to snarl at me  I then picked him up, and because his harness was not tightened enough, he was able to whirl around and sink his teeth into my hand. He bit once a small bite, but then bit again, and then sank his teeth in, biting furiously. He was furious, and I threw him down, and said,"Why you little devil, you are trying to kill me." Whenever i moved, he tried to move towards my leg as if he would bite me there too, and I said loudly, "You stay away from me.  Don't come near me. "  I walked away backing from him and went to the apartment to get some hydrogen peroxide to put on the wound. When I saw how deep it was and how quickly it was swelling I knew I had to get to the emergency room. I was scared to death to be honest, and afraid that it would be badly infected.  He tried to run after me to get inside the apartment but I closed the door on him and would not let him in. I tried to go to my car twice to drive myself down, but I backed out each time  because I just could not do it. So went back and found Chuck the gardener who said he would take me.  I was scared that I would be in real trouble which as it turns out I am.

I went to emergency where I was treated by a good doctor who told me that he would not keep the cat, and that cat bite is such a serious problem that I should be very careful.  He sucked out the blood and tried to get the bacteria out, stitched it, gave me a prescription, and sent me home. I got the prescription, and had to go back the following day as they wanted to see how the wound was doing.  I went back the next day, and the infection was bad, so that they treated it, redressed it, and sent me home to come back following day for a different doctor to inspect.  I went to the new doctor who said that it is getting worse, and that I would have to be admitted. I had not anticipated that or I would have taken things with me for my phones, my amusement, whatever, that would get me through  it. I was admitted on Tuesday, and had to take IV treatments of antibiotics for the rest of the week, not knowing how soon I would be released.

Finally, it seemed that I could go home Thursday but when the surgical doctor looked at it he said that he would not send me home like that, and that we had to schedule surgery. I was scared at that, and at first did not want to do it until I learned that it was the same treatment that I had had in the emergency room.  However, instead of being an outpatient I was an inpatient. It meant that I would have to have an anesthesiologist, and that I would be put under while he treated me hand.

Now that was an experience I will write about in the next blog insert.  Publishing this now to take a break to watch Olympic stuff and then return to discuss remainder of hand treatment.