My cat had an abcess a little over a month ago. One morning as I let the animals out when I got up, she was kinda mopey, didn't go out. No big deal, I thought. When I got home from work that day, her cheek was swollen up real big. I could touch it and she didn't flinch, so I made plans to take her to the vet the next day to have it looked at.
We didn't make it. She was sitting in the box window over the kitchen sink when the abcess ruptured. She jumped down, sat by the sink a minute, came down to the floor, Went into the laundry room, back to the dining room, and back into the kitchen.
Now, if you're not clear about what an abcess is, it's a pocket of infection that forms in the skin, and it's full of blood and yuckie stuff. When it ruptures, it bleeds. A
lot! My kitchen, laundry, and dining room looked like a
CSI set! I got hold of her and put her in a box, called the vet and got emergency arrangements over the phone. ($200 fee before any treatment even starts!)
They kept her, put a couple of incisions over where the abcess was, and when I picked her up the next morning they showed me how to irrigate it, and gave me a cone to put on her to keep her from scratching at the wound. Next day, the skin flap opens up as I'm irrigating it, and I'm thinking I've nearly killed my cat! There was only a tiny bit of blood, which surprised me. I would have expected another torrent.
Back to the vet (regular vet this time, not the emergency place, as it's daytime,) and she says that the skin had died, would have fallen off anyway, it just happened when I was working on her. They took her back out of sight and cut away the dead skin and cleaned the area. Now my cat has a half-dollar-sized place on her face that has
no skin, exposing the muscle underneath! Vet shows me how to clean it, and gives me a cream to apply.
Amazingly enough, this thing doesn't hurt, apparently! When I'm cleaning the wound and then applying the cream, she just holds her head up and purrs!!
So we go back to the vet once a week for checks, and we're now starting the 5th week of treatment. I still keep her isolated from the other animals (a dog and another cat) except for when I can watch them and interrupt anything that looks like rough play, and she doesn't go outside any more. It never got re-infected, and now is a pretty small sore on her cheek as the skin continues to gro back and heal.
Pretty scary deal, especially that first night spattering blood all over my house. Here's a picture just a couple days ago. The large area below her ear and behind the remaining sore is the area that actually had no skin when this started!
So: if your cat gets a swelling on its face, take it to the vet immediately. They can drain the abcess and help you fix it before it gets to this point. This one apparently started when she got cut in a fight or something, and the cut got infected.
If you're up for it, I have more pics during the process
here, but be warned, one of them is ugly. . . .
Once swatting her away and I try walking away... she chases me and bites at my legs. When I try to go upstairs, she races me upstairs only to bite my skin off and picking her up to move her. This goes on almost on a daily basis. My arms are always full of scratches, including my hands, people always think I'm cutting myself. But that's just how she rolls. Like taggles had said, she does that kind of thing in her "free time." Crazy stuff.
Love-hate relationship I guess.
