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Update:
18 Sep 2003
ASIAHOMES TIPS FOR A LONGER
LIFE FOR YOUR PETS Be Kind To
Pets -
A Community Education project using narrative stories with pictures, is
sponsored by AsiaHomes
Internet - we connect owners & agents to expatriates or foreign
investors globally without costing you a bomb.
The cat owner
was knocked out
It was raining
dogs and cats at 6 o'clock in the evening on this 2003 Chinese New
Year's eve. The phone rang as I was pulling the eight large metallic
folding doors of the industrial shop approved as a veterinary surgery.
Five folding doors on one side and three on the other must be
straightened to enable me to shut the surgery. One door clanked
against the concrete floor as it had sagged down and I had to use my
biceps to unfold it. Modern shops use a vertical roller shutter as the
main door but this shop was built twenty years ago and folding doors
were the standard for all Housing and Development Board industrial
shops.
This was a dark gloomy day. Wet. One prospective owner with a vomiting
dog had cancelled her appointment at 1.30 p.m, probably to prepare for
the reunion dinner.
I was ready to go for the reunion dinner with family members and meet
long lost cousins whom I had not seen for at least a year in this
hectic-paced Singapore society.
"Is your clinic open? My cat has a swelling in the leg," Mr Salleh
said over the phone. "He was bitten by a stray cat."
I diagnosed it as the common cat bite abscess. This could not be an
emergency. Could the cat wait one more day? But that would be
Chinese New Year and the following day would also be a public holiday.
Generally, no owners turn up on these two days and the surgery would
be closed.
It should be a simple case and should not take more than 10 minutes, I
thought as I asked Mr Salleh to bring in the cat. On one condition
that he should telephone me if he was not coming. A few owners
would not turn up after making appointments and
not informing me of the cancellation. The non-stop rain and the
great difficulty in getting taxis to could be a good reason for not
turning up.
Mr Salleh's cat had a slightly painful soft lump on the right back
thigh.
"There would be nanas (pus)," I said. "I need to tranquilise this cat,
make a big cut to drain out the pus and let more of the yellowish pus
and blood to seep out the next two days. You would need to wipe off
the blood with clean swabs."
Mrs
Salleh who had worked in a human medical clinic before, asked in a
worried voice, "Will you be packing the inside of the wound with an
antibiotic gauze to eliminate all bacteria?"
"No," I said. "It would be extremely painful when the gauze is pulled
out later and the cat would go crazy." I used to adopt the practice of
an older vet in treating racehorses with saddle abscess. After
draining the abscess, I would pack the antibiotic gauze inside the
wound. When I removed the gauze later, the horse just
experienced great pain as the gauze was pulled out. So I had not used
this procedure anymore although it was part and parcel of deep abscess
treatment in human medicine.
Mr Salleh must
have felt nauseated as we talked about the operation on his "son" as
he treated this cat like a family member. He said, "Excuse me, I need
to go out of the examination room to have a smoke." Blood and pus must
be too much for this banker more used to money matters and an
air-conditioned office.
The cat had a fever of 39.7 Celsius. He was lethargic and was
not suitable for anaesthesia. His heart might fail. He would be dead.
Should I prescribe him antibiotics and wait till 3 days later? He
would be healthier. Many owners find it difficult to medicate
cats. Would the cat die from the infections and toxins inside
this 8 cm x 3 cm abscess if I advised later surgery?
I gave him a tranquiliser and prepared to lance the abscess.
"We wish to be in the operation room to see the surgery," Mrs Salleh
said. Mr Salleh volunteered to help me as he saw that I had no other
adults around. There was only teenager Jason, the son of Nurse
Ann, obsessed in his computer gaming using broadband.
"It is not a good idea," I said trying to discourage spectators
although it would be good to have extra help as Nurse Ann had left to
prepare her reunion dinner. I used to have spectators before but
somehow their reactions to blood and pain in their pets distracted me
in my work.
"There would be lots of blood," I discouraged, although there would
not be that much bleeding in this case. Much depends on what the
layman thinks about the amount of blood in lancing an abscess. "Some
owners had fainted on seeing their pets cut. I would be asking Jason
to help me."
"It
would be very smelly." I emphasized although I figured that this would
just be the usual yellow pus with not much smell, the type you would
see on squeezing off from a face pimple.
Mr and Mrs Salleh decided to be inside the operation room after the
cat was tranquilised.
The tranquiliser was given at a higher dose but it was not sufficient
even after 10 minutes as the abscess was really painful when I touched
it.
I needed more drugs to relieve the cat of pain. I switched on the
anaesthetic gas, put a mask onto the cat's face. Jason said,
"The cat is going to claw me!" as he held onto the mask which
enveloped the cat's face. He definitely was not cut out to be a
veterinarian as he was frightened by feeble attempts of the cat to get
out of the mask.
The cat was in deep anaesthesia within five minutes of breathing the
gas. The area around the abscess was licked bald by the cat but I
still had to shave off all hair.
It would be an easy minor surgery, I thought as I lanced the wound. A
dirty brown fluid with numerous black particles oozed out from the
swelling. A revolting smell of dead meat or putrid faeces hit my
nose.
"Did the cat pass out stools?" I checked his anal area. There was
none. Did he pass foul intestinal gas at the same time as I lanced the
abscess? No.
Jason
used the collar of his T-shirt to cover his nose. Definitely, he would
not be qualified to be a veterinary assistant. This was supposed to be
a simple case but it was not.
There was a loud noise on the white plaster wall of the surgery room.
As if some one had banged at the door. I looked up from one of the
most smelly abscess I had ever encountered. Mr Salleh's knees
had gone wobbly, his brain had suddenly gone nauseated. He was knocked
out, like a boxer in the ring given a swing to his head.
Did he have a heart attack? Mrs Salleh got him standing and helped him
out of the room.
Now how could Mrs Salleh's cat who was neutered and I presumed had
stayed at home be bitten? How could an old stray cat with a mouth full
of the most powerful bacteria bite him?
Mr Salleh said, "My wife feeds the stray cats and this cat was with
her as he needs to go out every day."
Mrs Salleh said, "The old cat had very bad teeth. It must be full of
germs."
This old stray cat resented the intrusion on his territory but since
Mr Salleh would usually be present, he could not do much. The old
stray must have bottled his anger for a very long time. He sprung at
this gentle cat when Mrs Salleh was feeding and stroking the other
stray cats.
I just hoped that this cat did not get any other infectious diseases
from the bite and that the antibiotic injections would help him. It
was very difficult to medicate this cat and therefore Mrs Salleh did
not want antibiotics which should be given for the next ten days.
She would contact me if her cat was not eating well after this
treatment. No news was good news in this case.
To snip his left ear or not?
"Should I
snip off a portion of the tip of his left ear or not?" I asked myself
after castrating this blue-eyed white stray cat with brown ears and
spots.
Singapore stray cats with a clipped left ear indicated that they are
neutered. They would not be impounded by the authorities if they
were cared for by volunteers in a neighbourhood. This scheme of
sparing feral cats with clipped
left ears from culling was practiced in some Western countries too.
However, around May 2003, Singapore stray cats were culled.
One stray cat volunteer observed in Sep 2003 that as many as 30% of
the stray cats in the wet market and food stalls had disappeared.
"Is it so easy to catch the stray cats?" Nurse Ann asked.
The volunteer said, "The cat catcher approaches the cat, casts a net
over its head like a fisherman. The net encloses the cat as he
retracts the strings at one end of his telescopic pole." The
street-wise cats survive by hiding inside the bigger covered
drains during the daytime.
"Will the authorities use wire mesh to cover the drainage holes at the
side of the road so that the cats can't get access into the drain?"
Nurse Ann asked him.
"It is not practical to do so," the volunteer said. He would feed the
cats dry cat feed past midnight daily and has six of them inside his
house.
Now, back to this white cat with blue eyes. I decided not to clip his
ears as I did not know whether the policy of not impounding stray cats
with clipped years would still be continued. It is a form of ear
mutilation and chances of adoption are higher if he looks good with
two intact ears.
I said to the lady who brought her in for castration,"
Clipping his ear would not exempt him from culling.
He is healthy and needs a good home."
The willowy and tall fair
lady had to put him back
on the streets as her father was ill and no animal should be around
the apartment. Besides, she could not keep him inside her HDB (Housing
and Development Board) apartment as it was a breach of Section 3 of the
Housing and Development (Animals) Rules. This Section prohibited
cats to be kept in HDB Estates.
So what should be done for this cat?
This cat would have to fight for dominance on Hougang Street 123 once
again. But now he is neutered and may not be strong enough to do
so. He is a friendly and brave one-year old white cat with blue eyes.
Readers who want to adopt him, email
judy@asiahomes.com or tel:
9668-6468 now!
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