My apologizes to my readers for the delay in writing posts. I have been in the hospital since last week. My birthday was on Monday, Oct. 6 and had a fun filled day, ending with going to a fine dining restaurant. I received wonderful gifts from family members and a friend. On Tuesday, it started off like any day in my life except a little different. First, housemate had put a butter cream birthday cake in the oven the day before and forgot to tell me. We had been given a cake at the restaurant also. Anyway, I turned on the oven to bake biscuits for the morning breakfast and ended smelling something very sugary burning in the oven. I managed to get the melting mess out of the oven after burning my left index finger. What a mess I had to clean up!!

Later on in the day, my youngest cat, Noel, had a seizure. It was the second seizure she has had in 2 months. This time as she was coming out of the seizure, she started to droll out of her mouth. I started to reach for a paper towel and all of a sudden she swung her head around so fast and bite down on my right index finger. The main problem was she bite down to the knuckle joint and locked jawed on it. I did manage to use my left index finger with the big water blister from the burn and get her mouth unlocked and lay her on the kitchen floor. I washed my hands and the finger with antibacterial soap immediately. Then ran upstairs and cleaned out the wounds with hydro peroxide, then bandaged with clean gauze and Neosporine. I thought I had done everything right.

I went back downstairs to check on Noel and she was fine and walking around meowing like she was fine again. Soon playing with the other cats.

The next day, I observed my finger and part of my hand was swollen and very sore. I called my regular doctor’s office and it was closed. I had to go to a funeral service of one my church members and then I would go to the emergency room. The emergency room doctor told me that he would probably be calling in a consultant. I told him I just needed a tetanus shot and antibiotics. He shook his head and told me that he needed an xray to determine if my cat had broke off a tooth in my hand. There were other test run as well. The nurse took a swab of the wound to send for a culture. Then the lab took blood to do a CBC and other lab test. It seemed every few minutes someone was coming in to do something on me or to me. I half expected a colon cleanser to be done too with all else that had been done. A orthopedic surgeon came in and told me that I was going to be admitted to the hospital and have surgery. I was in disbelief over all that had happened in 24 hours to me. Both doctors praised me for not waiting any longer than I had. Both told me that I would have lost my right index finger the next day if I had waited any longer.

So if you get bite by an animal whether it is your pet or not, please do not delay go to your doctor or an emergency room immediately to be properly treated. It can be a matter of life or death.