Cat bite and its effect

The World According to Bahja Hattan is one of those unfriendly cats that resides in Kitzania. Although he was born and bred here, as a kitten he was one of the few ones who always ran away at my sight. It took a whole year to be able to trap and neuter him and even longer to get him treated.

Two weeks back, I noticed that he’d been missing for days and when I found him, he was sick; he’d stopped eating and was super skinny. I decided to trap him and take him to the vet. The next day, I went straight away to catch Hattan with my bare hands (Mom nicknames me Tarzan when doing that). He was weak and barely walked. How harmful could he be? Well, I was proved wrong instantly.

As I was trying to pull him out from under the car, Hattan suddenly turned and bit my left index finger. I stood there watching blood trickling down my hand and wondering about the white spittle. I’d been bitten many times before but never seen such a spittle! Was it infectious? Suddenly, Sham the helper appeared from nowhere with a white t-shirt in his hand, asking for my advice on how to remove a brownish tea stain.

Instead of excusing myself to clean the wound, I stood there instructing him on how to use Clorox precisely. He noticed my bleeding finger and his eyes opened wide in horror (a cat bite is his worst nightmare). That’s when I decided to leave him and get my finger treated. The white spittle got me in a panic mode, and instead of disinfecting the wound properly I washed it with water and called my vet. When he didn’t answer I called the clinic to ask if Hattan was vaccinated.

Luckily, he was. By that time, my finger was throbbing and crimson-coloured but that didn’t stop me from gathering the cats in their carriers to take them for their appointments. At the clinic, the vet cleaned my wound and prescribed me the famous antibiotic for cat bites: Augmentin. By now, the finger was so swollen it felt as if it was about to burst. The pain was radiating up my arm. It was impossible to bend the finger or put my hand down as there was a shooting nerve pain in my finger that made me adopt Bonaparte’s famous hand-on-belly pose for almost a week.

Daily tasks became difficult, especially those related to cats. Thankfully, I got Sham’s assistance when medicating kittens and the bite was our shared secret that was spilled -by him of course- to Mom days later. However, I kept thinking of Hattan and prayed hard that I’d manage to catch him before his condition worsened- he’d been living on water only for days. My prayers were answered and I managed to corner Hattan two days after my finger’s injury, stuff him in a carrier after a Gladiator-movie-worth scene: woman vs feline- and take him straight to the vet. He weighed 2 kg and was suffering from jaundice.

After a week of hospitalisation, he returned home for a whole month of treatment and I placed him in the bathroom. Hattan’s appetite is back but he still hides from me. As for my finger, the week of Augmentin was tough on my tummy and caused me constant cramps and nausea. By the third day, the swelling was going down but then the itchiness kicked in. When the antibiotic course was done, the skin on the wound started peeling off like a snake’s. As for now, I’m as good as new and ready for more cat action!