Ouince has simmered down a lot. I left him with plenty of food and water overnight and it is quiet out there as most of the cats hang out in the house. This morning, he allowed me to pet him and somewhat examine him. His wounds are grievious. He has an abscess on the bottom of his left front paw that has completely split his paw wide open and left it to infection. Although, I know how to debride such wounds, he will not allow me to touch it. Putting my hand just over the paw which he keeps high in the air- I can feel the fierce heat radiating from it. I started him on antibiotics. The only thing I can do for him is leave him alone except to take the meds and get him to the vet first thing in the morning. I fear he has more wounds than what I can easily see and this paw is as swollen as an apple. Under his chin it looks like another wound is festering and he is sneezing with discharge coming out of his nose and eyes- poor boy. He looks to be about 4 years old but OMG he is so rail skinny. I feel every bone on his spine, his ribs are pronounced. This kitty is unloved (until now) and a real mess. Of course, he is black too.
The problem is, although the vet debt is being slowly paid down- there is no extra money to treat him. I will have to take him in, get him evaluated and figure out how to pay for it later. I feel great guilt at doing this- adding to the already high vet debt, but the only other choice is to leave him in the streets to die. I can’t do that- and if tomorrow my vet gives me grief about the bill- I will just have to tell him I will do all I can to cover it. As far as automatic once a month donations go- we get in every month we get $155.00 a month and that is it. When you consider we take the cats no one else will touch- that money doesn’t go that far. So Quince (who is really quite sweet despite his display of fear last night in the bathroom) will have to wait until tomorrow to be helped by hands much more experienced than mine.
I am sorry to say this, but I think that the city of Sweet Home and it’s police department are simply using you up. I have read here on this blog, time and again how you are called out night and day by these people whenever and wherever the have a “Cat Problem” that they are not equipped to handle. You always respond immediately and do your very best to give help, care, medical care and love to the poor animals. They, then, just seem to wipe their hands, say “Problem Solved” and walk away. They provide you with no money, no resources, and not so much as half a cup of kibble for a starving kitten. I am , in no way, trying to tell you what to do, because what you do is truly wonderful. But I just think its terrible what they do.
It’s amazing what a full belly and a good night’s sleep can do for a kitty. Last year one of our rescuers took in a kitty who we initially thought had frostbite on all four paws, fur missing, red skin, smelled like rotting flesh, but sweet as pie. Pawpads especially were swollen and infected. It turned out the kitty had pododermatitis and it did take a while to clear it up, but in time it did, and he didn’t even need surgery to remove scars or pockets of infection. I can’t donate money, but if it might seem this looks similar, that might at least reduce the amount of testing and treatment you’d need to find the cause. Here is the article I wrote about him: http://thecreativecat.net/rescue-story-toby-goes-home/
Good luck with this guy! Wish you were closer!
Bernadette, it does look similar. I guess the way to describe it- is the paw has a ragged opening (like a split) and growing out of the split is this nasty smelling- granulated abscess type growth. His two back feet are affected as is his one front foot- on one of his back feet his claws seem to have just vanished? I have a photo of the front growth on my cell phone- if you want to send me a text- I can send it your way. I was concentrating more on getting him to the vets then taking photos. From what I understand, they have cut and drained the growth and bandaged his legs. I have seen a lot of cats hit by cars (sadly) but never one that created such wounds as he has. I did ask them to run films on him too because as we were sitting in the room, I heard a lot of sounds from his belly I have not heard before and they sounded pretty ominous. At any rate, my cell phone is 541-799-6194