Nature red in tooth and jaws

Little Kitteh had us in the emergency room over a little misunderstanding on Sunday. She was trying to clear the property of "vermin" — the concept, Tuck explains, that our feline companions use to categorize birds, small mammals, insects, spiders, slugs and other cats — with the exception of Earl Grey, of course — who would invade their territory. Lover of all things bright and beautiful that we are, we were trying to rescue a precious baby Gray Catbird from the jaws. But our timing and hand-eye coordination were off. In a violent face-off complicated by the dense undergrowth of the lilac out front, we lost the fledgling — or was it a pre-fledgling that had fallen from the nest? — and a lot of our own blood: Final score: LK=2, Sissy=0.

The parents were frantic. Their calls and fruitless attempts to misdirect Little Kitteh's attention away from their helpless offspring will haunt our dreams. We can't hear them now without remembering the horror. Puncture wounds on back of right hand and left thumb. Profuse bleeding. Chelsea Mass General emergency room across town delivered. We accepted a tetanus shot but asked for no antibiotics if not absolutely necessary, remembering the havoc they can wreak on the digestive system when they kill your body's beneficial micro-organisms together with the bad stuff. Next morning we regretted not having gone with the antibiotics, though: Angry red, painful and swollen hand and thumb made it almost impossible to surf the internet, let alone blog or tweet! It's those darned germs in cats' mouths and the deadly delivery system of their canines:

A cat has small sharp teeth, so when it bites the puncture wound can be quite deep. There are some infections a person may get as a result of bacteria commonly found in a cat's mouth, like pasteurella. Then there are other diseases that come from a cat's being infected by other pests, such as fleas.

Little Kitteh didn't hold our attempt to thwart fulfillment of her turf-defending duties against us, and how could we be angry with her for following her nature? On the good side, the antibiotics are doing their work — swelling and pain subsiding by the day — plus the doc turned us on to a "wonder drug" we'd never heard of: Probiotics. With "20 billion active cultures per capsule" (according to the package description), they help "maintain and modulate your body's natural microflora."

Comments

[Teresa]

So glad the antibiotics are working! Yes probiotics are a most excellent helper when you have to take medication to get rid of an infection. It may be best to stay out of LK's path when the hunt is on it's a sad fact of nature that these things happen. The parent birds will learn from this and choose the next nesting place with more care.

[JKB]

While I would never advise against antibiotics when needed, if you wish to avoid them in the future, you might try Goldenseal as a prophylactic and even when the infection is still small. I've had very good luck with it for cuts, even sinus and ear infections and it is less distressing to the system than when you must use the nukes.

[Gayle Miller]

Sam the Wonder Cat made it his mission in life to bite my excellent sis Linda twice - one of which bites ended up in about 5 hours in the emergency room. So I understand. My present gentlemen adore her so no danger there!

[Laura Lee Donoho]

Glad you are back and both of you are well, Little Kitteh and Little Sisseh. When the teeth are bared, I have learned the hard way, you have to get out of the way.

One afternoon, I tried to keep my very possessive Sabby from fighting with our daughter's golden Bear (who was visiting at the time) and he bit me hard on the wrist. It became obvious right away that the bite would have to be treated. I had to have a tetanus shot and antibiotics.

Sabby (real name Sebastian) has always been an intensely possessive but extremely loving cat. I immediately forgave him after he bit me because I knew it was my fault for petting a "rival" cat for my affections.

I used to jokingly say that Sebastian was a picture of God and His jealous love of us.

But now I don't think it is such a joke.

[pam]

That whole circle of life thing can get messy, can't it?

Glad you're on the mend!

[retriever]

Oh, poor Sissy! We've all been similarly wounded rescuing adorable baby bunnies and birds from our ferocious tigers...er...sweet kitties out in the gardens. Hope you heal fast.

Besides the probiotics, you might want to try eating Chobani Greek yogurt. It's delicious,zero fat, double the protein of rebular yogurt, very low in sugar (which means the beneficial cultures work better--sugar isn't good for them, but is good for bad bacteria). I don't have stock in it!

Just last week I posted about two victims of our enormously fat but effective hunter:

(at first I thought the bird just flew into the window)

http://artemisretriever.blogspot.com/2011/06/i-may-have-to-eat-my-words.html

http://artemisretriever.blogspot.com/2011/06/not-victim-of-cat.html

[Cindy]

To think I used to like cats. Ugh. My sister has a horrible, horrible cat named Annie. She hisses and bites at everyone who comes close to her. Except Amanda (my sister). She'll sometimes let Amanda pet her for a full 30 seconds before chomping down on her hand. Cats are evil. Except for my dear, departed Spooky. She was not evil. She never bit...me.

[M. Hopson]

Did the doctor say something regarding when to take the probiotic prior to taking the antibiotic? I'm just wondering that if i took probiotics immediately after taking antibiotics, the two would just cancel each other. Oh, and what brand of probiotics did the doctor gave you? I get mine here everyday http://probiotics.mercola.com/probiotics.html from what i understood, there are many strains and some supplements could have different effects because of the strains present.