Geri Shields: Feline Friday: An Office Cat Update

For those of you that don't know, there is a cat that has made it's home in the building complex of my day job office. She is the second office cat. I was able to find a loving home for the first cat. This one showed up shortly after that and promptly found her place in one of the lesser used chairs in the office. In return for her day time companionship, I give her food, water, a small shelter on the side of the building, and plenty of pets. A few months ago I gave in and gave her the name Kiki.

Over the past few months that she's been here, she's proven to be quite scrappy and keen hunter. It looked as though she had a good handle on things and could pretty much take care of herself, until one day last week. I pulled up to work last Friday morning to see her waiting for me by the door, as usual. Something was different, though. She had large clumps of dried blood on the top of her head directly above each eye. I cleaned her up a bit and it honestly didn't look too bad so we just continued on with the day as normal. Come Monday, the swelling above her right eye was gone. I took that as a good sign. Tuesday, things began to change in a way I hadn't expected. The swelling above her left eye, which hadn't changed since Friday morning, had gotten bigger.

Thinking over the situation on Tuesday night, I decided I need to take her to the vet. Wednesday morning I put a cat carrier in the car and headed for work. After arriving at work I noticed the swelling was much worse and promptly made an appointment with my vet for later in the afternoon. Throughout the day I kept checking Kiki's eye only to discover that the swelling was rapidly increasing, so much so that her eye was swollen shut. At that point, I decided to pack her up and head to the vet early.

I should say that this is the point where the story might get a bit unpleasant. Just thought I'd worn you. Now, we all know that getting any cat into a carrier can be a challenge, and even more so with a stray. This was the case, only it was much worse than I had ever expected. She did put up a bit of a struggle, but that wasn't the bad part. She tried to dart out as the cage door was closing and hit her head against it. I guess this applied just enough pressure on the swollen part of her face, that, and I shutter when I say this, it popped! I was moritfied! My poor office cat! Now, with blood streaming down her face, I put Kiki in the car and raced to the vet. It was a tortured car ride, though more for me than for her, I think.

Anyway, the visit to the vet offered nothing but good news! The swelling was due to one of the wounds on her head getting infected. The popping of said abscess ended up being an "ok" thing, only because the vet didn't have to lance the wound to drain it. Still, it seemed like a traumatic way to go about it, but stuff happens. So, Kiki got cleaned up and was given antibiotics to help fight the infection. Since I had her at the vet I went ahead and had them test her for feline leukemia. She tested negative and was vaccinated. Way to go, girl!

Kiki is now back at the office and things have pretty much gotten back to normal. Her face looks a million times better than it did on Wednesday. I still have no idea what happened to cause the wounds, but at least I know she's going to be ok.