Poor Little Kitty Cat

Poor little Paddle. Old Auntie Padoo went to the vet's today with a bad tooth. She's 12 years old. I noticed that her gums were inflamed and her right canine tooth was looking pretty grisly. It had a lot of tartar on it and was looking bad at the gums. I called our vet, and they are closed on Thursdays. I decided I really wanted to take her in, because I was watching her last night, and I thought she might be in pain. She didn't want to eat her favorite food - fresh rotisserie chicken - so I knew something must be up.

I called another vet a little further down the road from our regular vet, and he is really good. They told me to bring her and would work around their other appointments. Turns out, her canine tooth had to be pulled. It was infected with pockets of pus and infection. The vet did some blood work to check out her general health and extracted the tooth. He gave her some anesthetic and put her out for a short time, got the tooth out, gave her antibiotics and pain medication, and took very good care of her. Jim and I picked her up late this afternoon, and she has been walking like she's drunk since we came home. Her eyes are fully dilated and she's disoriented, but she seems calm and is not in pain. She notices the hole in her mouth and licks her tongue around it.

She looks pathetic trying to wash her face with her paw. Every time she takes a swipe, she falls over. What a sorry little cat! When we picked her up, the vet spent some time talking with us and showing us the tooth that came out, the hole in her jaw, and talked about what else needs to be done with her teeth. She has 2 more teeth that will need extracting, since they have cavities, and her other canine is only half there. It was broken off about 5 years ago and also has some infection. The antibiotics should take care of that. We will be talking to the vet tomorrow to hear the results of the blood tests and give him a report on how she's doing. We'll have to make an appointment to take care of the rest of her dental issues once this trauma heals.

Poor little thing. She's been crying a lot lately, and that must be the reason. The cavities are bothering her, from what the vet says. The probe caused her jaw to chatter when he touched the cavities (she was out then) so he knows the nerves are exposed. Poor baby!

I was very impressed with the "bedside manner" of the new vet, and will use him from now on. Our other vet doesn't communicate as well, so it's a good change. Paddle seemed very content curled up in his arms when he brought her out, so apparently she feels comfortable with him.

PHOTO: Paddle sleeping