Biting the hand that feeds you

Or, My trip to the Emergency Room (ER).

This morning at 5:30 or so I am awoke to Brother exchanging words with another tomcat outside my bedroom window. Well, after a few moments of listening to their threats to each other, I roll over to rap on the window to chase the other cat off my window sill so I can get some sleep.

This is where things get interesting.

Brother thought that the tom outside had a compatriot inside who was jumping him. So, he did what any self respecting cat would do, defend himself. Unfortunately for me, this ambush was my hand.

So, quicker then a flash, I have an orange tomcat attached to my arm at the wrist. He quickly realizes his mistake and lets go – while I am still reacting and pulling my arm away. So, he lands next to Sister. Well, this is round 2. Luckily that only lasts a second, and it looks like I am the only one who got any serious damage.

So, off to the bathroom I go to get this cleaned out. No glasses, lots of blood. probably a good thing. Wash wash wash. Brother comes in, crying – like he is saying “I am sorry”.

Now to bandage it up. I go to the kitchen, grab the first aid kit out of the laptop bag, and get to work. Still no glasses. I notice my video camera, so I start recording.

So, I know cat bites have this nasty tendency of getting infected. So I know I need to go get it looked at, if not just for some antibiotics.

So, I get it all bandaged up, and go back to bed. I am not messing with going to the doctors at 6am in the morning.

So, about 11am I give my local buddy Jason a call, does he know of any open clinics that are local. No, but a look at the phone book, he gives me some phone numbers. I call them up, nobody is open.

So, I call the number on my insurance card. Rhode Island. I get a couple of places from that person – poor gal, had herself the hiccups. When she read me the number, I kept mis-writing it because she kept interrupting herself. I would read it back with the hiccups included. We had a good laugh.

I call the numbers. It’s for the ER. Great, no other choices.

So, off I go. I know I need the cat bite looked after, but man do I feel silly going to the emergency room for it.

So, I get checked in, all that good stuff. The doc takes a look at it. Gonna need X-Rays. “Huh?” Evidently, the cat’s teeth can flake or break off, and leave a small piece which will get very infected.

Off to X-Ray. I have to ride in a wheel chair. I ask for a copy. She gave me a CDROM, but it’s blank. Darn it, just my luck. Sorry, no pictures of my insides for you.

I got a tetanus shot. They clean everything off real well, and apply antiseptic. Wrap it up. Give me a prescription for Augmentin, which is amoxicillin, and sent me on my way.

A few things I learned today.
1) Don’t scare Brother, he reacts badly.
2) 6 hours is too long to wait to see a doctor for a cat bite.
3) Cat bites are 80% likely to become infected.
4) Dog bites are 30% likely to become infected.
5) Human bites are even worse then cat bites.
6) I did a good job doing first aid on myself. It didn’t look pretty, but it was the exact same thing the ER did.
7) I still have a lot to learn about video editing. I am trying to use Blender and MediaCoder to get the job done, and it’s just frustrating me so far.

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4 Comments

  1. That looks pretty bad- Brother meant business!! Next time(if there is a next time) go to the doc sooner! Especally when it was that swollen so soon. But you did a good job of taking care it it. good thing you didn’t pass out and hit your head and bleed all over the carpeting and then you would have had me really mad at you!….

  2. Poor Mike. More reasons I don’t have cats.

    That’s cool you’re making use of your video camera, but you should make the videos a lot shorter.

  3. i know. the software that came with the camera is basically for burning to disc. not for editing.

    I am having a hard time with Blender. I spent over an hour on a video tonight, cutting out the really bad parts, and a wrong setting as I saved it crashed the program.

  4. Fear has been struck into me. Fortunately, I think my discipline has awarded me some good old fashioned intimidation with Toe Jam and Peanut. Wow – don’t want to catch them in a panic surprise though…

    Hope the recovery is going well. I presume they didn’t find any broken off teeth?

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