For the last 2 months Leah and I have remained overly stressed over our cat, Monty. He had developed an upper respiratory Staphylococcus Felis bacterial infection that spread to his inner ears, bursting both of his eardrums and eventually swelling his ears completely shut. He showed almost on external signs of discomfort until the ears were closed, then he began to walk with his head to the side and started sleeping a lot. Prior to this, only the occasional sneeze (which from now on will result in rushed medical visits). For those of you who know about upper respiratory infections with cats, it is highly relevant information to point out he is a pure bred Persian. These infections are notoriously detrimental to specifically Persians. In many breeds, this type of infection is related to some type of removable blockage or some underlying condition. For Persians, the 'blockage' is often attributed to their compact facial structures...and is hardly removable. The veterinarians have reminded us on many occasions that Persians with his illness often never recover and are forced to deal with it for the rest of their lives. This news did not resonate well with either of us since he is only 2, and just before he came we lost a great Persian to an untimely development of PKD.
Since we first realized his sickness mid December, he has undergone sedation 5 times to have a scope inserted into his ear to take pictures and flush out the infection. Before this could even take place several anti-inflammatories had to be administered to just open his ear canal to insert the scope, and even with these drugs, eventually the scope had to be forcefully inserted into his ear resulting in blood coming out of his ears for several days. At this point they basically pressure washed his ears with a cleaning fluid in the scope. After 4 more treatments of this, more than 50 days on a fluoroquinolone antibiotic named 'Marbocyl' with an anti-inflammatory/antibiotic ear drop 'Aurizon', and countless prayers we were told the most recent culture came back negative for his bacterial infection.
Concerning Monty, greater news could not have been given to us. He is still on his antibiotics for 20 more days, because the veternarians are basically afraid of this bateria in combination with his breed...and sounded rather shocked at the negative culture. They actually seemed to smile as large as I was. Just in the last couple of weeks he has begun to behave much more normal (as in waking me up for a turkey snack this morning) which is in stark contrast to the days he would sit perfectly still unmoving, while our other cat Marley maintained a seemingly unnecessarily large distance from him that only highlighted our concerns.
We are tremendously thankful to have received some encouraging news after months of being told to prepare for the worst.
And now some pictures to go with the names:
Since we first realized his sickness mid December, he has undergone sedation 5 times to have a scope inserted into his ear to take pictures and flush out the infection. Before this could even take place several anti-inflammatories had to be administered to just open his ear canal to insert the scope, and even with these drugs, eventually the scope had to be forcefully inserted into his ear resulting in blood coming out of his ears for several days. At this point they basically pressure washed his ears with a cleaning fluid in the scope. After 4 more treatments of this, more than 50 days on a fluoroquinolone antibiotic named 'Marbocyl' with an anti-inflammatory/antibiotic ear drop 'Aurizon', and countless prayers we were told the most recent culture came back negative for his bacterial infection.
Concerning Monty, greater news could not have been given to us. He is still on his antibiotics for 20 more days, because the veternarians are basically afraid of this bateria in combination with his breed...and sounded rather shocked at the negative culture. They actually seemed to smile as large as I was. Just in the last couple of weeks he has begun to behave much more normal (as in waking me up for a turkey snack this morning) which is in stark contrast to the days he would sit perfectly still unmoving, while our other cat Marley maintained a seemingly unnecessarily large distance from him that only highlighted our concerns.
We are tremendously thankful to have received some encouraging news after months of being told to prepare for the worst.
And now some pictures to go with the names:
To be so young he has an excellent mustache.
Monty and Marley being attentive.
Monty snuggled up to his favorite person.
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