BITTEN

Some things you just don't expect.

Of course you expect to get the odd scratch when you have cats; even more so when you rescue them like I do, or look after them like Carol does. It's par for the course, goes with the territory, no big deal. It tends to be a quick swipe which will result in a drop of blood or two or a thin line across your hand or a claw dug in, often accidentally. Bites are relatively infrequent and hardly ever draw blood. 

Relatively.

Hardly ever.

Have a look at this-

That bite went completely through the skin so that when you pull at the wound you can see, once you've mopped up the blood, the muscle tissue underneath. And yes, that is my hand about ten minutes after it happened. It's the worst injury I've had from a cat in my entire life.

So, who did it? Was it some tough old tom? Was it a cornered feral?

No, it was a 9-month old neutered and socialised (so I was told) pretty little tabby female I was picking up because one of its owners had developed asthma as a result of having the cat and I was picking it up to take to Carol's. It didn't even give any warning when I held out my hand to it, it just attacked and when I started walking away it went for the back of my leg. After washing my hands there, I left the cat carrier and told them to ring me after 9.30 tomorrow morning if they've got the little dear in it. And I'll come and pick it up. Wearing gardening gloves.

To be honest I was in a real state of shock. I called in at the shop on the way home to show off my injuries incurred in the line of duty, then went home, bathed my hand and put Savlon antiseptic on the bite and cuts. I also knocked back a large Southern Comfort and I never drink during the day, especially spirits. 

When Susan got home an hour later she told me to go to the walk-in centre and rang my GP to check when I last had an anti-tetanus shot. They didn't have a record of it so I reluctantly (I'm a brave little soldier)  agreed that it might be better to be safe than sorry and went along. Within forty minutes I was seen by two nurses who cleaned the wound, gave me an anti-tetanus shot, put a dressing on it -they don't close bite marks in case infection's already in the wound- and gave me some pills to take, not penicillin to which I'm allergic.

So there we go, just one of the dangers of the animal rescue business.

Let's have another look.