Don't Need to Experience *that* Again... (or why sometimes having cats isn't fun)

The nutshell:

My cat has an abscessed tooth (there's a "C" in "abscess"? I had no idea) and he's spending the night at the vets where they will operate on him and charge us a lot of money.  The good news: he's going to be fine.  The bad news: we've got two cats. >_<

The long version:

Nothing reminds you of how much of a wuss you are than living a nice cushy life in the biggest city in the First World only to find yourself having a minor heart attack at the sight of infected blood dripping from a wound in your younger cat's face.

I was a Boy Scout. I used to hike and camp when I was a kid. I skinned my knee and got all sorts of scratches, cuts and even a couple of honest to goodness wounds and never have I gotten queazy from the sight of blood.

Actually, not true--when I went for my pilot physical in ROTC in college, I did have a very minor internal freak-out while seeing my own blood squirt out of my arm into a clear vial.  While I did get really tense, I didn't get dizzy or nauseous.  I did get both today, though.  My younger cat, who has never lost his kitten-fur (aka he's still adorable as a little kitty), has been acting all sulky since my wife left to do a show in Connecticut about four weeks ago.  He's been hanging out in corners of rooms, behind doors and has generally not been as energetic or sociable as he used to be before Sierra left for three months.

Then yesterday I notice a big scab on his face--on his right cheek just above his mouth.  It was a little swollen and I'd never seen a cut like this on a cat in my lifetime's worth of having them as pets (I've had 8).  I cleaned the scab a bit and then put Bactine on it. Then today, around noon, I picked him up again to check on his scab and it was covered in blood--purplish blood.

I could feel myself kick into panic mode and tried to force myself out of it.  My stomach got instantly tight like bricks and I got short of breath as I dabbed the blood off of his face with toilet paper and then got some more Bactine.  By the time I had the Bactine, there was more blood.  Then he shook his head, sending tiny droplets of blood onto the white tile floor of my bathroom.

I Q-Tipped the Bactine onto the wound but quickly the Q-Tip turned a weird shade red some somehow looking more like a mix of purple and orange.  I wet some toilet paper and dabbed at the wound and more blood soaked into the TP.  I had a distinct concern that I wasn't going to be able to stop the bleeding.  The only answer was to take him to the vet, asap.

Turns out he's got an abscessed tooth that had poked right through the little guy's cheek flesh :(  The vet said this is very common, but I've owned plenty of cats and have never seen this happen (and I don't think I've ever heard of this happening either).  But the sad truth is that he wasn't acting sulky because my wife has been gone, he's been in pain and doing what all animals do when they're in pain, run and hide in places they feel less open to attack.

The weird thing is that it's obvious (now) that the abscess began, uh, abscessing around the time Sierra went off to begin rehearsals for her show in Connecticut.  The weirder thing is that just days before she left we took both cats to the vet for a check up.  One of the things the vet said they needed was a teeth cleaning, but we couldn't afford it and the vet said it wasn't absolutely necessary, so we told them not to do it.  There were other medical issues that had come up, unrelated to teeth, so we had to pay for those and figured we'd deal with the teeth later.  Turns out they didn't feel like waiting.  But weird that the abscess would come so close to when we brought them in.  Now I'm worried about my older cat's teeth.

Like we can afford another grand after this >_<  I swear I don't remember vets being this expensive.  And I *just* put some money in the bank. :(

Anyway, so as I mentioned at the top, the poor guy is spending the night at the vet where they will drain the puss (!), remove his abscessed tooth and then stitch him up.  They said I should call after 11am tomorrow to see how he's doing.

After all that, my stomach isn't bricks, but does still feel tight.  Thankfully, I'm not dizzy or nauseous.  But what a shitty Friday.