"He was trying to catch the beetle, a big one. The beetle must have bitten him!  He has not been eating for a few days and has lost a lot of weight. His right eye is much swollen!"

You rarely encounter beetles in Singapore  apartments nowadays and cats will have to content with lizards and some cockroaches. The conjunctiva was so enlarged that the iris could not be seen.  Fortunately, the eyeball was intact. But for how long?

An antibiotic injection was necessary. Antibiotics eye drops were given and an Elizabeth collar was worn. This was not a simple case of eye infection. The cat had a high fever and was not eating.  You could see a long scratch laceration wound parallel to the eyelid. This beetle must have been fierce and dug into the eyelid introducing the pus forming bacterial germs. Antibiotics and fluid therapy by injection were given on the first day.

A thick brown exudate glued the eyelid shut the next day.  The cat was resisting and clawing when Dr Foo wanted to open its upper and lower eyelids to clean up the pus forming bacterial infections. 

Permission from the Owner to tranquilise the cat to do the job was required as the cat may just die after tranquilization, being in a weak state.  Shiny yellow pus oozed out of the eyelid the second day.  On day 4, the eye was free of pus and the cat went home to be hand-fed and given eye drops.  He would have used up one of his nine lives as the bacteria had spread to his blood stream and caused a high fever. 

	Lift cat's chin with one hand and quickly put in 10 eye drops with the other hand. The affected area was really a big wound after the hair was clipped and shaved. The Beetle's mouthparts might have sunken into the conjunctiva (the swollen fleshy tissue below the upper eyelid).  The cat had tranquilisation in this case.

He had an Owner who had sought veterinary treatment quite early, otherwise he would have lost his eye to severe infection and would have died of sepsis. Many of these eye infection cases need prompt treatment and long nursing after leaving the veterinary clinic. 

Left untreated, the cat would have scratched his eye persistently till the eyeball gets ruptured. The pus would get into the eyeball via the corneal ulcerations and the eyeball   would have collapsed in due course.

It would be extremely painful and if the cat survived, it would have a sunken eyeball and be blind for the rest of his life.  This cat is fortunate since his owner has sought veterinary treatment early enough and saved his precious eyesight to hunt another day.

P.S. I picked out this case from www.asiaone.com. I went to "Web", typed "cat eye infection." The cat has the similar coat colour as the 2010 case below. Without this search engine, it would be difficult for me to fish out this case. It was written one decade ago. My digital images were really the types to be thrown into the garbage bin but then you must start your project and learn from doing and failing. Failures will occur in your life time and hopefully, you will succeed (in producing beautiful digital images) one day.  
    

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