So, kitteh news!

When I moved the cats before my trip to India, Rocket's eye started watering, and got gunky yellow.  I took him to the vet - his cornea wasn't scratched, so they just sent me home with some eye drops, and all was well.   It pretty much cleared up while I was gone.  Plus,  Rocket also got fixed and his hair lip repaired.

Fast forward to this week.  His eye got tons worse.   The eye drops weren't cutting it.   Yesterday morning, Kevin was greeted by Rocket with an eye very very very swollen and looking, well, bloody and crusty.   So I stay home and call the vet at 8 - well, while they are open, they have no vets on Thursday.   So, they refer me to another clinic, and I call them and make an appointment for 11:15.  Which of course makes the entire day shot as far as work is concerned, thanks to train schedules.  Plus, the place is in the boonies.  Like Rt 59 and 103th Streets.   

So I pack Rocket up, and off we go to the boonies, which is about 8 miles away.   We get there, and the place is huge.   I mean, massive.  My vet had faxed my records down there already, so I just had to fill out part of a form.   Then I wait a bit, and they whisk us back.

The vet looks at Rocket's eye, and I describe what's been going on, and he says he's relatively sure he has a certain virus, but he'll go clean out his eye and test his cornea for scratches.  Then they swoop up my poor baby Rocket and take him into the back.

Now, my vet does minor procedures in the exam room.  The only time they've taken a cat back into the back was when they were doing an actually surgery.   Oh, and once they took Jacqueline in the back because he was going insane, and they had to stick her in a box so she'd stop trying to remove people's heads.  But then, once they had her in the box, they had me go into the back.  I don't like that they just took my baby rocket away.   At All.

So, I wait, and he comes back.  He says that Rocket as feline herpes of the eye.  He was vaccinated for it, but if he caught it in RedNeckVille where he came from, then it wouldn't have helped.  Moving cats is like the number 1 reason it flares up.   The steroid eye drops, while can make it better, can also make the virus go crazy.   So, they gave him a steroid shot to help with inflamation, antibiotics to deal with any infection (since it was really really inflamed) and Lysine for Cats to feed him everyday to help with the herpes.

I swear, all of my cats HAVE to have something wrong with them.

So I'm taking Rocket back to my regular vet on the 9th for a follow up, and to just confirm.  I did research, and I think that the vet I saw is probably right.  That same eye was runny when I got him, and Kevin says he's heard Rocket wheeze.  He has sneezed, but that was mainly from food getting up his nose, I figured. 

So, in the long run, its not so bad - no more problem than giving Katie her steroid pills.   Hunter is the only healthy one, and he's an Asian Wild Cat with the Dumbs.   But I still love him. :)  

Oh, and Rocket's nose looks great . It's still not perfect, but its much more functional and comfy for him.   They had to pull two teeth out of his nose.  Ew!

Edit:  this place was so in the boonies that its next to a farm stand.  Where there is an actual farm.  That grows things.  I bought just picked sweet corn!