Recuperation, Feline Edition

Our intrepid barn cat hurt himself!

We don't know how, but last Wednesday morning he was sporting a pretty gimpy limp when he came to the door for breakfast. I think he was actually pretending to be as fine as he could manage when he knew I was watching, but when he was under the dining room table and thought I couldn't see, he looked way worse. He could barely put any weight at all on his right front paw, and he looked very slow and stiff.

That afternoon, Tiegan found him in his bed in the workshop, which is up on a workbench. He couldn't get down by himself — no surprise that he didn't want to leap on his foot if he couldn't even walk on it. So she scooped him up and brought him into the house to eat and sit on her lap for the afternoon.

Kirk and I checked his foot, but it was fine. We figured it was a sprain, and a quick look online (did you know the WebMD has a pets section?) suggested giving it three to four days before calling a vet.

I caved by Friday, and had an appointment the next day.

He seemed really uncomfortable, and actually hissed at me once when I went to pick him up. That has never happened before, so he clearly he was not himself. He was also sleeping a lot, and not a happy, purrful sleep, either. More like out cold.

So Saturday morning we crammed him into his carrier and took him to the vet, where they gave him a thorough manual exam (which was fascinating — I daresay you have to be an even better clinician as a vet, since your patient is never going to tell you anything). She decided that he probably had a small muscle tear in his shoulder, but if it didn't look better in a week, to come back for an x-ray. In the meantime, we were told to try to rest him as best as we could with a barn cat.


Turns out that was pretty easy. We carried him into the house for food and cozy couch rest in the morning, and carried him back to his workshop bed in the evening after his dinner. A couple days of that treatment (plus all the physical therapy he had to loosen up the joint while the vet was checking him out), and he's looking much better today. His limp is far less pronounced, and he seems happier. 

He also seems to be getting bored of us, and wants to go outside again. So I guess all is well!

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