mimo had a tooth pulled last night. the vet was hoping to be able to save it, but once she had him sedated and started probing the inflamed area on his gum she said it became quickly apparent that there was hardly anything left of this tooth and it needed to come out.
<gross out alert>
the vet showed us the pulled tooth when we came to pick him up. it was totally covered with yellow gunky plaque, and there was absolutely no root left at all; it had all rotted away. the vet said it was just hanging on in his mouth by 'a couple of threads of enamel'. the root socket was filled with pus and blood; she scraped all of that out before stitching his gum back up.
</gross out alert>
the weird thing is, no one has any clue how this happened. he wasn't showing any signs of pain. the rest of his teeth are pearly white. the vet said it was shocking to see an 18-month-old kitty have a tooth that looked like it belonged to an 18-year-old cat. "it could have been caused by food getting up under the gum, or something puncturing a portion of his gumline. or... i hate to even say this word... it's such an off-chance... in fact, i don't even want to say 'cancer'... it's likely this was just a fluke incident."
but she said cancer. and now i can't stop thinking about it.
we have to bring him back in 4 months for a follow-up, just to make sure no other teeth show similar signs of decay.
anyway, he was not a very happy kitty last night, and ray got on a totally uncharacteristic worrying jag. a big part of his concern is about the antibiotics we have to give mimo twice a day... for 14 days. this normally wouldn't be a problem, but since we're leaving town in a few days that leaves the bulk of the work for our cat-sitters, which doesn't seem fair to them... they didn't sign up for drug dispensation. ray actually briefly contemplated cancelling our christmas vacation in favor of staying home to ensure mimo gets his meds.
(i have mentioned before that ray is absolutely insanely in love with our cats, right?)
anyway, the meems is clearly feeling better this morning, trotting around and leaping up on window sills... and he ate a whole bowl of dry food. so let's hope ray is feeling more at ease about our departure.
still, for our cat-sitters... a public apology for heaping more work on you. the good news is that mimo took his first dose of antibiotic (a crushed up pill in a tablespoon of wet food) without any trouble whatsoever, so i really don't think it'll be too much hassle to do the same. *whew*
Posted by xta at December 17, 2003 9:18 AM | TrackBack