Piper in trouble

Here’s another example of how women’s intuition prevails.

For a couple of days I had noticed that Piper our blind cat was less lively than usual, but I didn’t make anything of it. It was my wife who noticed what was wrong.
“Look inside his ear!” she exclaimed three days ago after dinner. There was urgency in her tone.

It was then that I saw Piper’s badly swollen right ear. So that was why Piper had looked a little like Yoda in the Star Wars movies to me as his ear seemed to be drooping. And that was why he had lost his sprightliness.

So the next day I rushed him to the vet after work. The vet said the swelling made it impossible for him to examine the condition inside the ear. Although the swelling might go after some time, the muscle in the inner ear might contract and block his hearing during the long process. The vet suggested an operation to remove the fluid in the swelling and to enable him to take substances out for testing to determine the cause.

The operation was a success, although Piper’s ear looked horrible with all the stitches and the incision. He also had to wear a protection mask for about two weeks to prevent him from scratching the wound. “No cats like to wear this,” the vet said. “But he should get used to it after a few hours.”

Piper didn’t, however. While he had shown no resistance at all at the clinic and on our way back, once he got back to the safe and familiar environment of our home, the usually timid cat revolted violently. He so phenomenally detested the device that he struggled and wriggled with all his might. It didn’t take a few minutes before he yanked it off, and he wouldn’t let us put it back on again. We had to call the vet and take Piper back to him for help. He taught us some more secure ways of fixing the mask should Piper force it off again.

Those ways turned out not to work against the little despot. He managed to remove the mask whatever we tried. In the end we had to give up and pray that he wouldn’t savage his own ear. Watching his every move and racing to stop him whenever we saw the slightest sign of scratching was both tiresome and nerve-wrecking. Fortunately, he soon seemed to have got the message and the scratching began to die down.

We cannot afford to be off guard though. The next few days are critical and we have to ensure that the ear coalesces well. Otherwise another trip to the vet will be required.