Willis update

If you only get one go around, it
appears Willis at least gets two...
now for the back story.

I left for China and Japan very early on December 10th.  Len was home with Willis for the next several days before he left for the Keys. I had my neighbors, Jerry and Joy, coming in to feed and tend to him (and his hair) as Len is highly allergic.  By the time I made it to Beijing and was able to connect with Len, I had been gone for two days.  It seemed that Willis fell apart on Day 1 of my absence. The dern cat.

Len reported that he was outside with him the day I left, and everything seemed fine.  However, by that evening he was limping around, carrying his right hind leg.  By the next morning, he hissed at Joy when she came to feed him.  Now, Willis is typically not a hissy cat, so he was clearly out of sorts.  I asked Len if it was possible he had a spider bite or something, but he didn't want to disturb him given that he already was not acting himself.  A few days later, he was still limping and not eating well.  Len, Joy and Jerry concluded he may have just hurt himself getting on or off the couch, and that he acted depressed more than anything else.  Len left for the Keys, and I felt confident he would be loved on by Jerry and Joy in our absence.

I checked in about a week later with a text to Joy, and she assured me that Willis was no longer limping, and seemed to be feeling better.  He was purring some, and seemed happy to see them when they visited him twice a day.  I arrived home late Friday night, 12/29, and the boy seemed indifferent that his Momma was home.

Such a cat.

*sigh*

The next morning however, I noticed him repeatedly licking his rear leg, and on closer inspection, all the fur was gone and he had two puncture wounds!  Len, having raised snakes in his youth, thought it looked like a snake bite.  Yet, he was no longer limping, and his appetite had returned (though not 100%) so we left it at that.

By New Year's Eve morning, his leg looked awful...he had licked it raw, blood seeping and weeping down his leg.  It took both of us to hold him down, clean his wounds, douse him with neosporin, and wrap his leg up. (hence the photo above).  I called a vet (he has not been to one since I returned home in July), but of course, it was the holidays and they were closed.  I told the answering service that it appeared to be a snake bite, and she tried to direct me to an animal hospital emergency room.  I didn't think it was all that emergent since the injury was three weeks before- if a snake bite was really what had happened.

The leg bandage lasted surprisingly longer than 2.7 seconds, but he had worked it off my the next morning.

That dern cat.

That brings me to this morning, when I stuffed a howling Willis in to his cat carrier. He HATES his cat carrier (and car rides) with a fiery passion.  We all toughed out the thirty minute drive to the vet, and by the time he was sprung from his carrier in the examining room, he gave me a look of both disgust and relief.

Dr. Shipley weighed him and the first bad news is that he was down almost two pounds! That is a lot for the boy, who typically weighs close to sixteen pounds.  I knew he had lost weight, and his coat was looking bedraggled to me.  

The second bad news was getting a thermometer up his hind end.  I can't fault him for being unhappy about that- I would be, too.  

The third bad news was he had a fever, which lead to an inspection of his leg...and then came the confirmation that we had considered after we did a 'Google images of snake bites in cats.'  He had, in fact, been bitten by a snake, and the doctor is certain it was a venomous snake (there are four types in southwest Florida).  Had it not been for his size, good health, and that the bite was on his hind leg and not his face, it would have killed him.  Poor Willis!

Dr Shipley said she lost a cat two weeks ago to a cottonmouth bite; which is likely what nailed Willis.  Coincidentally, our neighbors took a photo of a cottonmouth on their dock over the weekend. It could very well be the same snake.  Len is now on the hunt for it with his gun.

Though Willis was due for his vaccines, given his present
condition, she did not want to administer them today.
Instead he is prescribed antibiotics and prednisone for
the next ten days, and he will be reevaluated next
Friday.  She said the infection is very deep in his leg.
Since the boy has never been sick a day in his life
(well, except for the occasional sea sickness), I had
to receive a lesson in administering his meds.

"The prednisone tastes yucky, Mom," he says.

When he was sprung from his carrier for the second time today,
 we seemed to have made up. He joined me in the guest
bedroom where I finally tackled unpacking my suitcases.
He makes a good straw boss.

When I explained to him that I have to give him medicine
twice a day, and that I need him to give me his best effort at
cooperation, well, let's just say he got a little mouthy about that.

So, that is that.

Willis is on his second go around, and I am so thankful that he is.

I love the furry beast.

G'nite y'all!