Darryl (names have been changed to protect the innocent, and not-so-innocent) is a one year old little boy cat with quite the personality. He's small for his age, but has the purr of a lion. His physical exam went well, and I was excited to have another surgery under my belt.
One of my least favorite parts of veterinary medicine is having to draw blood and give injections to animals. I don't like to put any animal in pain, but I know that it is only to help them. Darryl was such a trooper for his blood draw. Pre-anesthetic medications, however, would be an entirely different story.
Premeds are given as an IM injection, which is more painful than just giving an injection subcutaneously, like most vaccines are given. In addition, the premeds can sting as they go into the muscle. As the anesthetist gave Darryl his injection, I was holding him, and he decided he needed a stick to bite on. That stick was my hand. Poor Darryl latched on and wouldn't let go. Poor kitty.
After I pried him off my hand, I had to report my injury to our faculty surgeon and fill out an incident report. Bites are part of veterinary medicine. It will happen to everyone, eventually. The thing with cat bites, is that they can be incredibly dangerous. Cats have very sharp canine teeth because they are carnivores and need to eat meat. Darryl, being a year old, had all of his adult teeth, which are stronger than kitten teeth. On top of having razor sharp teeth, cats also carry a significant amount of bacteria in their saliva, which can cause serious problems if the wound is not cleaned immediately.
I made the decision to clean out my wound, bandage it the best I could, and scrub in for surgery. I wanted to follow my patient through, and figured that a surgical scrub would clean the wound fairly well until I could get to a clinic. (NOTE: our faculty recommends that all students seek medical attention right away for any injuries sustained at school.)
Darryl's surgery went very smoothly, and he recovered well. I went to the clinic and got some antibiotics to prevent any infections in my hand. By this point, my hand had two very deep puncture wounds, and two shallow punctures. It had swelled significantly, and was painful, but looked okay considering.
The next day, my hand throbbed most of the day, and I could barely concentrate on classes. By evening, the swelling had doubled and the entire hand was red, sore, and radiating heat and pain all the way to my elbow. After texting photos to my human hospital friends back in Minnesota, I was convinced I better go in and have the wound looked at again. Fortunately, the doctor said it looked like it was healing. However, my kitty friend shredded the sheath around the tendon, creating what is called tenosynovitis, which was why my arm was so painful.
It has been a few days and I still cannot use my hand very well, but I am hopeful that I will be back to 100% soon, and am looking forward to being the anesthetist for my patient next week!
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| Five hours post attack |
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| The infection spreads |
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