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.