I had my six month old Manx kitty Pearl come down with something this week requiring some liquid medication. Apparently it doesnt taste too good, and just the thought of having to give her several doses of it over the next few days has left me less than thrilled.
The first day was rough, but the second day, as I was holding Pearl after her dose to pet her and let her know it was ok and I really wasn't trying to poison her with something- she decided she had had enough and it was time to leave. She leaped straight up, and happened to used my arm for the spring board to launch herself through the air..... and the very point of one back claw hit a vein in my wrist, and before she even hit the ground, the blood was pouring from it so fast it came out almost black, and began running down my arm.
Wounds on animals and others dont bother me, but I dont want to view my own... and while I sat there staring at this phenomenon that turned red after it hit the air, I grabbed a towel and clamped over it to put pressure on the vein. While sitting on the floor wondering if I should call the neighbors, I kept pressure on it for a couple of minutes and then lifted the towel to see what kind of mess I was going to have. Ok, the blood all over the towel did it, and I broke out in a sweat and recovered the wound, but not before seeing that it was bleeding INSIDE my arm and had formed a huge bubble full of blood under the skin that was about an inch around and stuck up about a quarter inch. The veins in my hand and wrist were also bulging a lot. Ok, now I broke out in a sweat.
I called my IEMT friend and told her what had happened. After her getting in a few jokes and giving me a bad time, she gave me some advise, threw in a couple more jokes- something about trying to do 'suicide by cat' and told me I might want to research other methods of trying to slit my wrists... and we hung up.
I cleaned the area up really good with iodine, put some neosporin on a big gauze pad and took the old handy dandy vet wrap and put a light pressure bandage on the wrist and left it there all night. I unwrapped it before taking a shower in the morning, to see that the height of the pool of blood had gone down some and it had spread out under the skin- and yes, it was pretty tender. No signs of infection or that it was going to bleed further, so I left it unwrapped for the day and off to work I went.
That evening, the entire underside of my wrist was swollen clear to the outside area of it (I type most of the day at a computer, and it hurt all day- the pressure felt like someone had a really firm hold on my wrist) and the discoloration of blood pooled under the skin was spreading- twice as large as it was the day before.
Today, it is even bigger, and measures 3 1/2 inches by 2 inches. In the pic, you can see the 'dot' where her one claw made it's entrance and bullseye! went straight into the vein. This is day four.....
Who would believe such a thing would happen- that the point of her one claw would happen to hit right on a vein and cause this? It doesnt really hurt today except up in the middle where most of the blood had pooled, but it's not bad, and most of the swelling is gone now.
Here is the offender, the 'evil Pearl', who really wasn't being mean, she just decided to go elsewhere....
The first day was rough, but the second day, as I was holding Pearl after her dose to pet her and let her know it was ok and I really wasn't trying to poison her with something- she decided she had had enough and it was time to leave. She leaped straight up, and happened to used my arm for the spring board to launch herself through the air..... and the very point of one back claw hit a vein in my wrist, and before she even hit the ground, the blood was pouring from it so fast it came out almost black, and began running down my arm.
Wounds on animals and others dont bother me, but I dont want to view my own... and while I sat there staring at this phenomenon that turned red after it hit the air, I grabbed a towel and clamped over it to put pressure on the vein. While sitting on the floor wondering if I should call the neighbors, I kept pressure on it for a couple of minutes and then lifted the towel to see what kind of mess I was going to have. Ok, the blood all over the towel did it, and I broke out in a sweat and recovered the wound, but not before seeing that it was bleeding INSIDE my arm and had formed a huge bubble full of blood under the skin that was about an inch around and stuck up about a quarter inch. The veins in my hand and wrist were also bulging a lot. Ok, now I broke out in a sweat.
I called my IEMT friend and told her what had happened. After her getting in a few jokes and giving me a bad time, she gave me some advise, threw in a couple more jokes- something about trying to do 'suicide by cat' and told me I might want to research other methods of trying to slit my wrists... and we hung up.
I cleaned the area up really good with iodine, put some neosporin on a big gauze pad and took the old handy dandy vet wrap and put a light pressure bandage on the wrist and left it there all night. I unwrapped it before taking a shower in the morning, to see that the height of the pool of blood had gone down some and it had spread out under the skin- and yes, it was pretty tender. No signs of infection or that it was going to bleed further, so I left it unwrapped for the day and off to work I went.
That evening, the entire underside of my wrist was swollen clear to the outside area of it (I type most of the day at a computer, and it hurt all day- the pressure felt like someone had a really firm hold on my wrist) and the discoloration of blood pooled under the skin was spreading- twice as large as it was the day before.
Today, it is even bigger, and measures 3 1/2 inches by 2 inches. In the pic, you can see the 'dot' where her one claw made it's entrance and bullseye! went straight into the vein. This is day four.....
Who would believe such a thing would happen- that the point of her one claw would happen to hit right on a vein and cause this? It doesnt really hurt today except up in the middle where most of the blood had pooled, but it's not bad, and most of the swelling is gone now.
Here is the offender, the 'evil Pearl', who really wasn't being mean, she just decided to go elsewhere....
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