Saturday morning surgery, two ladies brought in their cat for a nail trim. Really not a problem in this best regulated of all worlds. Do it all the time. Every cat should have a trip to the nail bar now and again – part of a cat’s right to look good at all times etc etc.
I’d not seen him before, so as a routine, I examined his mouth, checked his ears, listened to his heart. No problem there. He had a little hiss as I prodded his belly but then he let me get on with it.
One foot clip clip clip clip clip, no problem. Second foot clip clip clip yeowl and he whipped round, grabbed my left hand with all remaining sharp claws dug in as hard as they could and sunk his teeth several times into my wrist, drawing blood.
Now I’m a fairly phlegmatic guy under these ciircumstances, so I excused myself whilst I staunched the blood flow, preferring to curse into the scrub sink rather than allow the client and patient the vicarious pleasure of the ‘cat bites vet’ moment.
I returned to my post to finish the job (without incident), saw the rest of my patients, helped close up and then cycled off home.
Later that afternoon, my hand began to ache. Ache turned to throb. Throb turned rapidly to amazingly painful, turned to Oh my god, I think I might be about to pass out – what the hell was up with THAT cat?
As chance would have it, that afternoon we were booked to take the kids to see the homeopath – something we do every few months, rather like taking the car for a service (incidentally, I highly recommend this to ANYONE – quite apart from the massive health benefits of regular homeopathic tuning, the process of spending an hour where the entire focus is on the children and how THEY feel about life, school, their parents, siblings, food, friends, bedtime, anything, is very instructive to all, but I digress).
By this time, I felt ready to die, and was debating whether to cancel the whole event in order for me to be dragged off to hospital, but I figured three things:
- as a vet I know more about bite wounds than most doctors because I see them all the time
- they’ll just put me on antibiotics and painkillers
- here’s me, champion of homeopathy, using it all the time, encouraging others to, marvelling at how wonderful it can be. It’s a money where your mouth is moment, matey boy.
Erroll, I said, I need help. My hand was now major fat mans hand with no knuckles or wrist definition, bright red and thumping, any movement felt like the bones were broken and I was being stabbed up the middle of my arm repeatedly blunt rusty knives. It was, as you may be getting the idea, more than a teeny weeny bit sore.
He gave me a pill, with instructions to repeat three times that night and the next day.
The heady, I’m-going-to-faint-now feeling subsided within the hour. I tried to take the dog for a walk later but was shaking so much I could barely walk straight. Later that night, so long as I didn’t move it, there was no pain.
Sunday was still very swollen but I could use it. Monday I was able to cycle again (despite a few gloops of pus from the wound)Â and Tuesday I had knuckles again!
Which all goes to show what, exactly? It was the most painful cat bite I’ve ever had in 25 years of practice. Despite the small punctures, my whole hand had puffed up like a football. It resolved spectacularly quickly – significantly faster than I would otherwise have expected it to and more importantly without resort to the ubiquitous antibiotics. I emerged slightly shocked by the severity of it all, but quietly triumphant that that famous double act, homeopathy ‘n’ my immune system had done me proud.
Ledum 200, for those interested, but I would have to advise you to see a doctor first…