Click to enlarge Lucy

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My girlfriend and I vacation separately. This keeps our relationship fresh. Last week while on a solo ski trip I received a call from her.

“You should’ve seen this thing I squeezed out of Lucy’s back,” Lynn said, “it was all mixed in with blood and smelled like a dead body.”

I was instantly mad at myself because it sounded like once in a lifetime opportunity.

Lucy is one of our cats. She is probably about fourteen years old. She really doesn’t look much like a cat. Lynn thinks of Lucy as part bear, part buffalo. I’d add part owl too because of her pointy ears and big eyes that resemble an owl head.

Lucy had been gnawing a spot on her back for several days before Lynn felt a half walnut size bump under the skin. She barely pressed the spot when putrid ooze rushed to the surface. Lynn said that it smelled so bad that the scent lingered in her sinuses for hours. The ungodly liquid matted Lucy’s fur. Lynn tried using a comb to remove the decayed chunks but Lucy didn’t like the pulling of the hair. The affected area was too sensitive so Lynn used a wet towel to clean Lucy’s fur.

Over the next day the walnut filled up and Lynn squeezed a generous amount again. This repeated over the next two days and eventually oozing came to a stop.

When I returned there was only a dime sized encrusted wound on Lucy’s back. It looked like it was healing.

And then the next morning Lucy started chewing another spot on her back. We discovered the second spot hiding in the fur. I begged and pleaded Lynn to squeeze the area for me but she packed Lucy up in a box and took her to a veterinarian.

It turned out that this kind of infection is common in cats. It may result from a scratch. If untreated it can spread under the skin and in worst case affect internal organs.

The doctor shaved a good section on Lucy’s back and made small incisions where there were additional deposits of smelly stuff. He let it drain and then inserted a small camera under the skin to look for hideouts.

We got our cat back in the end. She is doing fine. There are two latex tubes stuck under her skin. The ends of the tubes are on the outside of the skin and the purpose is to drain the pus. It all looks weird and a bit gross too. The tubes work as prescribed. Every now and then you see a little pus mixed in with blood dripping out of the opening.