New kitten, enucleated eye, pus

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Venita

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Hi all,

This afternoon I adopted a kitten from a shelter. I met this kitten last weekend when I helped in the rescue of diabetic Jitterbug to Don. The kitten's shelter name is Peter.

Peter napping with his Poppy. CLICK THUMBNAIL TO ENLARGE ALL PICTURES

The kitten has had his left eye removed. It was damaged from infection during his early days on the street. He and his two siblings, aged 3 weeks, and his mother were brought to the shelter in early May. All three kittens' eyes were stuck shut with infection.

The way I understand it, the shelter vet finished Peter's enucleation procedure this past week, stitching it closed. It swelled up, and the vet drained it and put him on Clindamycin (a liquid antibiotic) BID. When I picked Peter up today, the enucleated eye was very swollen, but the shelter tech told me that it would reduce as the Clindamycin started to work.

It appeared as I drove Peter home that in his desire to get out of the cage, he popped one of the stitches. But everything looked OK. When I went to wake Peter from his nap, his enucleated eye was, and still is, oozing pus.

...

If this still appears to be a problem in the morning, I will take Peter to my vet. I can't return to the shelter vet because they are not open on Mondays.

I also plan to keep the pus wiped off his face, and smear the area with an antibiotic ointment. Of course, he will be getting the Clindamycin. All the cats are on Lysine, to hopefully prevent URIs, although Peter does not appear to have come home with that shelter bug.

Any other thoughts for things I should do for Peter's eye??
 
Sounds like you have a good plan. Just try to keep it clean. I wonder if your vet will want to give him a stronger antibiotic than just the clindomycin. It looks like he has a raging infection there and not just the run-of-the-mill type of one. I also wonder if the wound was cleaned good enough to have it sutchered closed and maybe needs to be re-cleaned and re-sutchered. Just my rambling thoughts....
 
To be honest, I would take him into your regular vet for a full checkup. I have had 3 special needs kitties, but never one who had to have an eye removed. but this would be what I would do (also, you are helping him great by watching him closely).
 
For any new pet or if starting a new vet, it's always a good idea to take kitty in to have an intro and start up a file.
Very cute kitten; I am sure everyone at your vet office will fall in love with him.
It could be that your vet has a better idea on how to treat the eye problem, and it may need to be seen soon, even the stitch put back?
 
ditto on a vet visit. It may be possible to drain the infection without necessarily opening up and re-closing the wound.

I'm wondering if a warm compress would feel good and help to clean off the pus.
 
Petey saw the vet this morning. The swelling in his no-eye was greatly reduced, because the pus all drained out last night. Vet changed his ABx to Clavamox. Pete also has scarring on the periphery of the cornea of his yes-eye, which diminishes his vision there by maybe 20%. But his vision may improve as he ages. I look forward to sharing Pete's journey through a reduced-vision life. I think he has a lot to teach me about overcoming challenges with joy and spirit.

Pete also got treated for active ear mites. OH NO! He's happy, healthy, and stole hearts as he climbed on everyone and purred and rubbed. He is about 12 weeks old because he has all his baby teeth.

Peter snoozing on my office floor this afternoon. The light portion at the left of his body is his no-eye, which you might be able to see is no longer swollen.

th_DSC03825.jpg


Later, we took a nap together. We slept once he finished about ten minutes of rubbing himself all over my face. When I woke, Petey was on his back sound asleep but purring and making starfish paws in the air. He's adorable, but I wish that my resident cats would stop hissing and growling at him. He's just a baby. I know, it takes time. But DH is giving the transition only a couple weeks before he says Peter will have to go back to the shelter.
 
Venita and Ennis93 said:
Petey saw the vet this morning. The swelling in his no-eye was greatly reduced, because the pus all drained out last night. Vet changed his ABx to Clavamox. Pete also has scarring on the periphery of the cornea of his yes-eye, which diminishes his vision there by maybe 20%. But his vision may improve as he ages. I look forward to sharing Pete's journey through a reduced-vision life. I think he has a lot to teach me about overcoming challenges with joy and spirit.
Click to expand...

That sentiment is awesome! I saw this thread right after you posted it, but had no words of advice. I can tell you however, that I once had a kitty much like Pete. Except he was totally blind. He and 3 littermates were brought to a vet where my wife was then working when they were only a couple weeks old. They were feral kitties, and mom was nowhere to be found. All 4 kittens were in really bad shape, and they all had some sort of infection or virus in their eyes. Between all 4 of them, there was only one eyeball that worked. Two of them didn't survive. One, who had one good eye, was adopted. The last one came home with my wife. He'd had to have one eyeball removed and the socket sewn shut. The other eyeball was still in place, but had been totally covered by scar tissue. So it sort of looked like an eyeball, but not really. He was blind in the one eye. We got him when he was about 5 weeks old. I wanted to call him Cyclops, but my wife didn't appreciate the sick humor, so we compromised and he was named "Winkie". Winkie lived to be 14 years old. He never "saw" anything but I guess that was his "normal" so he never knew any better. I believe he had heightened senses of smell and of hearing to compensate. He never had any trouble navigating throughout the house, except when we rearranged the furniture. Then we'd have to "guide" him around and let him refamiliarize himself with his surroundings. Ironically, he ended up developing cancer in the socket where his eye had been removed, and that is what finally got him. But he lived a long and happy life, and taught us a lot about dealing with what we thought was a handicap, but I think for him was no big deal.
I hope you and Pete share a great life together!
Carl in SC
 
Thank you for that story Carl. Perhaps you will have direct insight into this question I have for folks here.

Petey seems to be a real zoom-zoom kitty, and already very agile at jumping and climbing. Is it advisable to make any adjustments in his training because of his challenge? We already do not allow the cats on any cooking or eating surfaces, nor on the fireplace mantles. However, most other wood surfaces in the house--dressers, a high TV cabinet near a dresser (so that a double leap is required), windowsills--and all soft surfaces--chairs, couches, beds--are allowable.

One wood surface has been allowable, although scarey--a bookcase in front of a hall railing over which there is a story high drop to the stairway. Only one of the cats, my flying cat Nellie, gets on that one. I am concerned that Petey may have the ability to also leap to that surface. I have not moved the bookcase because I am concerned that Nellie would continue to go for the railing (and not have as much surface to land on). Nellie sometimes even sleeps there.

I have had Dawn Allen (animal communicator) talk to Nellie about not getting on that surface, but Nellie said no; she's very confident of her balance. In fact, Nellie's use of that surface escalated after her chat with Dawn. I didn't train Nellie away from that surface because I was concerned that my usual methods of training would scare her over the railing. Should Petey feel he has the ability to leap to the bookcase/railing, should I allow him to do so? I would have the same safety concerns about training, and if I were to find a better method to train, he might feel it unfair that it is OK for Nellie to go there, but not OK for him.

Thoughts?
 
I would first observe how he seems to do climbing and jumping when/if you get to the point that you know for sure that only one eye is going to be working. At that point, either he'll continue to show you that he's "ok" with only one eye, or you'll see that he isn't. I think, but not sure, that cats have binocular vision, i.e. that they see things the way that we do, both eyes focused on the same point? If so, then with one eye, he's going to have poor depth perception. If you see him jump off a chair or table and it's obvious that he misjudged the distance to the floor, then I'd do everything possible to deter him from climbing high enough where he's going to hurt him self by landing wrong. I'm not sure exactly what that deterence can be. Winkie was able to jump 2 or 3 feet off and land on the floor okay, but I have no clue how he did so. I'm guessing that he had a few bad landings at first (while I was at work maybe) and learned the right distance and how to land properly. I can't recall we had any 8 foot or so spaces where he could climb. Other cats would get up on top of the fridge, or the stove, but Winkie never figured out how to get up that high. Normally, Winkie only got up as high as a bed or the back of the sofa.

Hope that helps,
Carl
 
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