Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Hematoma!!

Much has transpired since my last post in October 2012.  Let's start with the hematoma. One Sunday AM late in November I noticed a huge blister on JP's right ear.  I thought it was an abscess.  I was freaking out, of course.  After consulting some friends in the cat biz...I managed to hold my horses until the next AM and brought him in to see Dr. Yao.  Yao diagnosed JP with a hematoma - basically a blood filled blister.  Generally caused by trauma.  Uhhhh...yeah, JP and INKY in particular play BiteEachothersEars on a daily basis.  Also, Yao thought that perhaps JP had scratched it himself.  He didn't have ear mites, but a tooth on that side of his face looked a little infected.  Maybe he was scratching at the tooth pain...Anyhoo...Yao said the hematoma would resorb on its own and didn't want to do any surgery to lance and drain it etc.  Whew!  But he put JP on an anti-biotic.  Of course.  Vet's always seem to do that.  But I was OK with the anti-biotic this time because we decided JP should come back soon for his first dental cleaning and he would need to be on anti-biotics for that regardless.
Well...when he went back for his tooth cleaning the vet tech called me and said Dr. Yao wanted to do surgery on the ear while he was under for his teeth.  I knew that would happen!  I asked her to describe the surgery: they lance and drain the hematoma then sew up the entire ear flap like a quilt so it cannot fill with blood again.  WTF!??  And Yao had told me before that a hematoma might pop up in the other ear too.  UUUUUUuuugggghhhh!  What to do??!!??
So I called Dr. Bernstein who I had just happened to meet that weekend after hearing about him for years.  He is an AMAZING holistic vet who lives and works right in North Miami Beach.  Long story short (I will write more about him in my next post)...I decided to refuse the ear surgery and let Dr. B work his magic on JP in a non-invasive way.  Good choice. 
Stay tuned.

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