I noticed yesterday that the Alien had a wet spot on his behind. It was as if he had diarrhea, but he didn’t. It concerned me; he is 17 years old, after all. I decided to keep an eye on him and if he got worse, I’d have to take him in to the vet.
Today, my sister and her daughter-in-law came in for a visit. When I took them upstairs to meet the Alien, we noticed that he was swollen back there. It looked pretty bad, but didn’t seem to hurt him all that much. He continued purring even when I poked around to see what was what. Even so, I knew he needed to have it looked at, so I called the vet.
Of course, they were booked solid all day. When I explained what was going on, they went ahead and squeezed us in between appointments so that we wouldn’t have to wait two days till Monday for him to be seen. I got Alien bundled up in his travel box with his portable heater and got him to the doctor’s office.
As luck would have it, we got to see the best vet there = Dr. Riley Wilson. He’s the zoo vet! He’s seen Alien before, and we like him a lot.
He knew right away what it was: a blocked anal gland.
At first he said that he’d send me home with antibiotics and Al would be fine. But, when I said that Al really doesn’t like taking pills, he changed his mind and had me take Al to the back room to try and drain the abscess manually.
In case you were wondering = Aliens really do not like to have their anal glands drained manually.
It was really bad.
Dr. Riley was amazed at the amount of puss. He even called to his assistants to come and see it, and they all kept saying things like “Cool” or “That’s awesome!”
Poor Al was not a happy camper even though they had given him a local anesthetic.
They got all that gunk out, flushed it out with a Betadine solution, and then topped it off with an antibiotic shot in the butt.
Dr. Riley told me that he was glad he’d changed his mind. If he had sent me home with Alien the way he was, he could have gotten really sick.
Alien is home now, snuggled up to his heating pad and nursing his sore behind.
Ah, poor baby. I'm so glad you took him in when you did. You're such a good mommy. :)
ReplyDeleteOh poor baby. Mittens had that once but we caught it early on and didn’t sound as bad as Alex. I hope he gets better soon and that it doesn’t come back.
ReplyDeleteShelly