Earlier this week, we took Louis Catorze to the vet for his steroid shot.
He has lost weight and is now down to 3.05kg, but this is quite normal for him at this time of year. However, rather more worrying has been his recent increased ear-scratching and head-shaking. And, when the vet stuck a cotton bud into his ear, she told us that she had “never seen gunge that colour [grey] before”.
Oh dear. Only Catorze could ooze freakish alien mank unknown to the world of science.
The vet called back a few days later to tell us that Catorze’s ears were “yeasty and waxy” with “ROS bacteria” (Reactive Oxygen Species, apparently – no idea what this means). Treatment will involve giving him ten drops (!) of ointment in each ear (!!) every day for a week (!!!!!!!).
Catorze doesn’t even like anything lightly brushing against his ears, so the thought of pulling them open and squirting liquid in doesn’t bear thinking about. Unlike the spot-on, where I’ve always got away with flinging the contents of the vial in Catorze’s direction and considering the job done if a few drops landed on him, with ear medication it’s pointless doing it half-arsèdly. There’s even a special way that you have to hold the ear when you’re doing it, otherwise the liquid just swishes around the outside and doesn’t go in.
The medicine, a product called Aurizon, sounds pretty severe. We have to monitor Catorze very closely and, if he displays any signs such as weird walking and head tilting, we’re to stop treatment and take him to the vet immediately.
Oh. Mon. Dieu.
Cat Daddy: “It might not be too bad. Wait till you try it.”
“You”?
Anyway, I have collected the ear drops from the vet, and I’m optimistically hoping that the little sod will sit for me as beautifully as this YouTube cat does for his human.
He won’t, will he?

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