Kitty Update- August 23, 2008 (written by Janeen)

So have I told you that neither Jason nor myself have ever had any training as veterinarians? Well we have not, surprising I know. Jason came home last night and had the brilliant idea of super-gluing the cat's skin back together. He had all our friends (we had other PCVs over for dinner last night) convinced that actually super glue was invented for medicinal purposes and this was bound to work. Well it sorta worked. We glued the skin together and covered it with gauze and an ace bandage, which unfortunately the cat took that off. We examined the area again to find that there was still a small area that needed to be glued together. We tried once more to glue it together, this time upsetting the cat causing him to run from us. He immediately started licking the area and in doing so, ripped open the skin again. Then it was actually bleeding and quite a mess. We were able to glue part of it back together before going to bed and again we put the gauze and ace bandage on him. We also gave him some ibuprofen in cheese to ease the pain. He managed to get the bandage off in the middle of the night. We put it back on and when we got back from town, it was off yet again. We cleaned the wound and put some ointment on it. There is still a section that needs to be glued back together, but we wanted to wait until the ointment seeped into the skin a bit. Since we've been home he has been rather lethargic and has thrown up at least 5 times. It is so pitiful. I am a little afraid of having children because I feel so terrible for the cat. Imagine how I'd feel if my child was in pain!

The good news is that he is still walking around (with less energy than normal), still eating, and still using the litter box. Either tonight or tomorrow we will try one more time with the super glue. I just talked to my parents on the phone and they said that in the olden days people used to stitch it themselves. I guess we could try that, but that makes me a little queezy. At least with super glue the process is over quickly. Plus, I'm not sure we can get the cat to stay still long enough for stitches.

So that's the story with the cat. Tonight Jason made an awesome dinner. We got some special ingredients: bean sprouts, bock choy and tofu. They were fresh at the Chinese market this morning. Its always nice to get some good variety.

Well I've typed two blogs in two days. Don't get used to this-- on Tuesday my students write compositions. I'll try to remember to post some examples of student work so you can understand my situation!