Last Updated on: July 15th, 2017
Let me tell you about Princess, a sweet little kitty-cat who wouldn’t hurt a fly, how I thought we were going to have to euthanize her, and the amazing recovery she has made. All in the last 3 or 4 weeks. Documented with pretty pictures, too! (and a couple of semi-gross ones)
Some background about Prinnie:
My parents inherited my sister’s cat, Princess, when my sister moved in with her boyfriend, who just happens to be allergic to felines. Princess goes by the name of Prin, or Prinnie. Rarely is she called by her full name.
Prinnie is about 17, has beautiful blue eyes, and normally does not venture out of the house except in warm weather. Considering that we live in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, where it is winter for most of the year, Prin does not go out often. However, spring has finally arrived, and she went outside about three weeks ago. When she did, she was terrorized by a mean cat from the neighbourhood, who only recently started coming around. Prinnie ended up limping, not wanting to move, and she stopped eating.
She wasn’t drinking anything, either. After a couple of days, I expressed my concern to my sister, who advised me to get some “kitty milk”, a food substitute made for cats that is available at the nice low price of $11.29 for a can that is the same size as a metal pop can. Yes, I am being sarcastic. This high price is ridiculous! But, I bought it for Prin, anyway, since I did not want her to die.
The first week:
I ended up force-feeding her since she had no interest in lapping it up. I used a child’s medicine dropper; a syringe that has measurements on it. I fed her about two teaspoons every two hours. I felt like a mother with a newborn baby! The only thing that was missing was a little kitty diaper!
The second week:
Princess ended up limping, not eating or drinking, and basically, just acting like she was “giving up” all week, so when my father discovered a “wet spot” on his bed, he told my mom, who then went to check it out for herself. She then called me.
Here is a factual account of what happened and how I found the hole in Prinnie’s leg:
“Come and see what Prinnie did!” Mom called from her bedroom.
“What did she do?” I asked as I made my way up the stairs.
“Look!” She cried, pointing to a huge wet mess on the bed, a few feet from where Princess was currently laying. “Dad said she’s all wet. I think you’d better have a look at her, Lorraine.” Concern laced her voice.
I picked her up, and immediately felt wetness. I located the source. It was on her back right leg. I grabbed a Kleenex to dry her off. That was when I noticed the hole. Panic set in immediately.
“Mom, she’s got a hole in her leg!” I cried out, having flashbacks to two summers ago when Neebs, a big orange tabby, developed cancer, which ate a hole through her face. Ugh. Panic. Tears. Then more tears.
“Get me a sheet or a towel, or something I can wrap her in,” I instructed my mother, who quickly complied by fetching me an old sheet from the linen closet.
Once Prinnie was wrapped up and unable to escape, I carried her downstairs. I was still crying, since I had no idea what was wrong with her. In a frenzy, I called my sister, who did not answer. After leaving her a message, I texted her. She either had her phone on vibrate, or was busy with her children and couldn’t hear it.
What to do, what to do? That’s when it hit me. Go on the internet!
Through teary eyes, clutching the swaddled cat, I opened my laptop, waited 30 seconds for it to boot up, then typed in “my cat has a hole in her leg” into my Google search engine. I had already determined that Prinnie was still leaking fluid, but not really bleeding. Oh, internet, how I love you! A ton of information was at my fingertips, and I was not the only one who had experienced this problem with a cat! I spent the next half hour reading and searching for answers, trying to diagnose Prin’s problem.
Here is a picture of beautiful Princess, healthy and happy, before she was attacked.
Through reading the articles I found online, I determined that Princess had an abscess. I read the instructions on how to treat it, and began doing so. I found this advice here. I began treating her wound with peroxide and human antibiotic ointment since we don’t have money to pay a vet. (They are very expensive.) I kept this up all week, disinfecting her wound every 12 hours or so.
I did not take pictures of it right away, but this is what it looked like. As time passed, the hole got smaller, and she started to heal. However, I also covered her wound with gauze and bought some type of a wrap that adheres to itself so that I could wrap her leg up so that she won’t lick it or scratch at it. It was black, and is shown in the picture below.
Princess went outside for some fresh air. I went with her to make sure she did not rip off her “wrap”.
Prinnie sat down to give herself a bath.
The wrap did not last, since I had to clean Prin’s wound every day and re-wrap it. Plus, it was important also to let Prin be able to “air out” her wound, and so I ended up removing the wrap completely. Finally, my sister came over, and took a look at Prinnie’s poor leg. Since I was still applying the ointment, my sister ended up making a cone for Prin’s neck to prevent her from irritating it further. Princess hated the cone!
Prinnie wearing her cone. She was not impressed, but there was nothing she could do about it!
Prin had great difficulty trying to eat with the cone around her neck, so I took it off the next day. She wore it off and on for a few days. When the cone was removed, she was happy!
The third week:
Prinnie has been eating and drinking by herself for a while. She was spoiled with wet/canned food, but began to eat her dry/regular food again. She started drinking on her own, too. And running, and jumping. Basically, she’s back to normal. She is still a spry little girl, and has great jumping skills. For an old girl, she acts young. I am glad that we did not have to put her to sleep! It seems like she will make a full recovery.
Here is another picture of her wound. You can see that it is slowly getting smaller, as it heals. It scabbed up, and surprisingly, Prin did not scratch at it. Until last week. Or maybe the scab came off by itself. I am not sure. Here you can see the scab that formed:
The fourth week:
Here she is on June 12th, pretty much all healed. She just has to grow her fur back! (It automatically came out when the abscess burst. This is something cats just “do”, which I did not know until this whole ordeal occurred!) Princess seems to be on her way to making a full recovery.
Prinnie is just one of the cats that live at my mother’s house. My parents have had a few cats over the years, and the most recent one that died is Swiper. He was a cat that belonged to the neighbour, who ended up hurt so bad that we had to euthanize him. He was a super-friendly cat and had the loudest purr of any cat I have ever known. He was white with black spots. He ended up either getting hit by a car or getting kicked in the face; I am not sure what happened to him, exactly, but he came home one day with a gaping jaw. We took him to the vet immediately and there was nothing they could do for him. We ended up having to put him to sleep. Here he is with Prinnie and Jacoby, my parents’ other cat, who is all white, and big!
Princess cuddling with Swiper.
Here is a picture of Swiper’s final seconds:
Swiper with the IV tube in his leg. The vet let me hold him while he passed away. He was such a brave little boy, and is missed and loved by all of us!
Here is Jacoby, Swiper’s buddy. He is totally relaxed in this picture!
Jacoby, relaxed!
Here is a picture of all three of them, taken long before Swiper’s accident:
Princess, Swiper, and Jacoby. Chilling out on their chair.
Here are a couple of pictures of Blackie, a cat that was “dropped off” at a neighbour who did not want her. Blackie began coming around the house, and now can be considered to be living there, at least part-time!
This was taken after Blackie’s first bath!
I gave Blackie and Prinnie some catnip one day, in a metal pie tin. Here they are, enjoying it!
Blackie and Prinnie enjoying some catnip.
Here are a few more pictures of Prin:
Prinnie and her shadow, with a yellow toy mouse in the background.
As you can see, these cats are all loved very much!
In fact, putting together this blog post inspired me to make a collage for my dad for Father’s Day. I also wrote a poem for him, “Cat Love”. I have decided to post this poem and a few pictures of this collage to Poetry Perfected (my other blog) next week (I have to wait for Sunday to give it to him!) and so will let you know when I do this. I am pleased how it turned out. I have never made a photo collage before, but I enjoyed doing it. I am artsy, sometimes. I am also a bit crafty! (pun intended….)
I hope you enjoyed reading about Princess, and what I have been dealing with the last few weeks. She is back to her “normal” self. Thank God.
Update:
Now my parents have two new cats (in addition to Prinnie) and they are cute, too. Midge is the cutest, especially when she tilts her head! I took a ton of pics and posted them on my other blog. Check out Midge, the Tilted Kitty if you love cats and want to see some funny pics!
My kitten is about three weeks old and our Weiner dog bit a hole next to its groin on the leg, would the treatment for your cat leg work the same?
It might. I’d probably take your cat to a vet, though.
Hello Lorraine,
Marble is our cat that we got her from our back yard when she was a little kitty in 2003. Last Saturday while working on our backyard, the gate was slightly open and Marble was having her sunbath in our lanai. Suddenly 2 pit bulls are on top on her. We screamed and ran and tossed whatever we’ve got in our hands to scare them out. Marble jumped the fence and disappeared for days. We called her back night and day, walked around calling her out…. This Wednesday before Thanksgiving, my son started making some noise and looking at the cat door. He said, “Marble is here!” We couldn’t believe it! Well, we got her, and she smelled really bad. She didn’t eat anything but hardly manage to drink some water as she couldn’t stand. We don’t even know how she made it back. Next day we bathed her…The smell didn’t go away…Yesterday we finally realized she has a puncture wound on her tail. We have a broken heart….Your article gave me hope as a Vet will cost us $$ and it’s hard for us as well. We are rinsing her with hid.peroxide and putting neosporin. We have faith she’ll recover since she made it back to us. She knows we love her and she loves us! Still no litter but we managed to get her to eat some canned food. Thank you for your article!
Wow, poor Marble!
I’m glad she is back.
Keep up with the peroxide and Neosporin treatments. She will be fine in about a week or two.
Let me know how she’s doing!
I know this was in 2013 and I don’t know if you’ll see this but I have questions and I really need answers. Was it a specific antibiotic ointment? Did you put the antibiotic ointment everyday on your cats leg? Please help. Thank you!
Yes, Karen, I still see comments!
I used peroxide and human antibiotic ointment. Every day. A few times a day. And it worked!
Re-read this article again. You’ll see.
I hope your cat is okay! (I am assuming you’re having a similar issue?)
Thank you so much! I read this article over and over again. I just wanted to make sure. I just don’t want nothing bad to happen to my cat. But yes, it’s the same thing that happened to your cat Prin. Thank you!!
Karen, your cat will heal up, but make a homemade cone for her/him so he/she won’t lick off all the ointment!
Thank you so much for your story! I am about to try to help heal a gaping hole in my Fritz’s neck. It was from a fight with God knows what. I also have very little $$ and hit the internet too. I’m using the “store brand” of Neosporin. I’m lucky because he’s a “tough guy” and is eating and drinking fine. But his neck is so HIDEOUS! Cross your fingers for Fritz. As soon as I find a neutering clinic, he’s getting a fast “attitude adjustment”. Thanks again, and the pictures were a help too. Believe me, they weren’t as gross as what I’ve got here!! No time to get grossed out…just gotta dive in! Take care, Lorraine.
No problem, glad to help, Gretchen! 🙂
I hope your kitty gets better quickly!
Thankyou so much for posting your story. My poor boy Felix has just today had the same problems and with zero money for a vet, your posting, I hope will help him. Xx
Jo-Anne, I’m happy I could help. Good luck with your cat, Felix!
Oh my god, how scary.
Our toy poodle is the size of a cat and has been whimpering in pain recently. It is so heart wrenching, so I empathise with your ordeal.
I hope your poodle is okay…do you know what is wrong?
Lorraine,
What a good cat mama you are to fix her up like that. I’ve had cats all my life. I know I could never live without them. They are such a joy to have around and are always up to something and very entertaining . They can be such loves too when they are in the mood. I have a million stories about cats. Some are on my blog here: http://sunni-survivinglife.blogspot.com/
It can be challenging to have a sick pet. It takes due diligence because they don’t want to be doctored even if they know you’re trying to help them. Yes the internet is a marvel for information. I’m not sure how we lived without it.
It’s been a while since I posted a cat story, but I have lots of pics on my blog. I love all your cat pics. Prinnie is a lucky girl and beautiful cat.
I’m down to all girls now. I lost my boys to kidney disease. They were 18 and 19.
For giving pills to a cat, ask your vet for a “pill popper.” They only cost a couple of bucks and it makes it way easy.
If your cat ever gets dehydrated from not drinking water, you can also give them pedialyte (the original non-flavored one) found in the baby isle in the grocery store. We had to give that to one of ours with an eye dropper years ago when she was having small strokes and didn’t remember how to eat and drink.
Sunni
Thanks for the helpful hints, Sunni!
I am sorry to hear about your losses, too. 🙁
Cats can be very entertaining, indeed! 🙂
That’s a story for a magazine. You should consider submitting it somewhere.
All three are lovely cats. Prin is old but she is in excellent shape, well maybe not right this minute because she’s still mending. You know what I mean though. We have a couple of part-timers too. One has the bobbed tail.
Hmm. What magazine would you suggest?
Your Prinne is just adorable. I am so glad she seem to be on the mend. My hope is that it will stays that way for Prinne. I have a cat and he is a very important part of our family. When he isn’t himself, we worry and find ourselves at the vet to insure he is at his best. BTW: Love the pictures of the cats… so cute. 🙂
Thanks, Susan. Yes, Prinnie is a total sweetie. She picked off her scab yesterday, and the spot on her leg got all red with blood, so now she is back to wearing the cone. I actually had to make another one for her. The first one got soaked when she decided to drink out of the toilet! What a cat! Hopefully, though, it will heal completely within a few more weeks. I took her cone off so that she could eat today, waited for her to wash her face, and as soon as she was done with that, she started licking her wound again. So, back on went the cone and more ointment. I guess this will be the daily routine for her (and me!) for a while…
Haha. I definitely will have to tell her that!!!
My sister is younger than me, too. She used to be gullible when we were kids. I once told her that I was from Mars, and she believed me. I really had her going, too; I convinced her that that was why I liked Mars bars (chocolate bars) so much! 🙂 Aaah. Sisters… 🙂
Sometimes you do find small miracles on the internet!
Yes, you do!
Good to hear Prinnie is going better! I have two cats and a dog. They tolerate each other and are forever harassing my husband and I for attention. Since we moved to NC two years ago, our big yellow cat has gone from 16 to 20 pounds. That’s a 25% increase in weight. I don’t even know if he’s going to fit in the pet carrier and we’re set to move across the country again in two weeks. The health struggles of pets always carry such a high impact for their owners/parents.
Yes, they do. I wish you the best on your move! Best of luck with your pets, too! 🙂 Moving is tough, even on animals.
Poor Prinnie! She is so precious! I am so glad she is doing much better. I know how hard it is to think you are going to lose a cat friend. I’ve had my cat Pumpkin since I was in 3rd grade. He’s actually older than my 15 year old sister which makes me laugh. But I consider him my best friend because he has been there through everything. I have five cats total, have assisted in 3 kitty births and raised a bout a dozen kittens–hand feeding and all so I know how you felt when you had to feed her. It can be rough. But I appreciate people like you who take the time and care to help out innocent animals. On a lighter note, the cone reminded me of the picture of a cat in a cone with the caption, “It’s all fun and games until somebody ends up in a cone”
Yeah, no kidding! :)LOL
Birth is tough for some cats. Prinnie almost died giving birth, so my sister had her fixed. Of course, this was years ago. My dad’s first cat, Lucky, had many, many litters, so I’ve seen kitties being born, too. (And yes, had to help once or twice.)
I think it’s great that Pumpkin is older than your sister. Next time Pumpkin wants something from her, tell her to respect her elders! 🙂
I am a catlover myself. But, after marriage I have no cat of my own. I am glad your Prin is happy and healthy now. I can understand how the pets can make us happy and when they are ill, we suffer with them too. It is hard to let them go.
I am pretty sure, your dad is going to be very happy with your Father’s day gift.
See my reply to Susan Cooper for what happened today with Prin!
I think my dad will like his gift, too!
That is great Prinnie is coming along. I have a dog and I know what it is like when these loveable creatures are hurting.
She seems like her old self now. The evil cat has not been around. I kept chasing it away, so hopefully he got the hint.
I had a little dog, Terri. She was part Chihuahua and part Terrier. She got old, sick, and died. But that’s a story for another day…
Wow, glad to hear that Prinnie is doing better. What a nightmare, but good for you for being on the ball enough to get the information your needed and dealing with the problem.
Thanks. Once my initial panic disappeared, I was able to handle things. 🙂
Oh, my, I’m glad that Prinnie is back to good health. I have three cats – have had pets literally all my life. They’re like family, the way they get under your skin. When they’re not well, it’s so stressful. You don’t know where it hurts or how to help. My oldest is 16 years old and has failing kidneys, so she has to get meds. I sprinkle some in her food, and must give her a pill every day. Easier said than done! But she’s a good girl, and eventually, the meds go down. Recently I’ve had to add canned pumpkin to her diet, since she gets a little backed up. Works like a charm! The things we do for our little guys.
Awww, your poor kitty! Getting a pet to take meds is tough. Also, I am glad the pumpkin is working. Did a vet suggest that? Share with the rest of us, please, Krystyna!
Although I have no pets, I can relate to your feelings and your need to help this cat. It demonstrates what kind of person you are. You went through a lot to not only keep this cat alive, but help her to make a full recovery. It takes a very caring person to spend the time and money on an animal to make them well. You could have just dropped her off at the vet and said “that’s all I can do”, but you didn’t. Great job!
Thanks. Money often plays a role in the decisions we make. I did not have the money to take Princess to the vet. But, I have the internet and a big heart. I love cats, but I am allergic to them. I need to wash my hands immediately after touching the outdoor cats, but Prinnie is really clean and doesn’t affect me too much. She lays down with me when I go to sleep, stays with me until I get into “the zone”, and then leaves, just before I drift off. I am so glad she has been steadily getting better. She’s a beautiful cat and a sweetheart. She’s funny, too. She also “growls”, when she doesn’t want to lay down with me. I love her, and my love for her is what made me spend the time taking care of her. I think that is obvious!