Athena has bad breath. "Is this significant?" You must be wondering. Yes. It is. I've noticed this for weeks now, but with Bump in decline and the Mr monopolizing my car, I just couldn't follow through with my instincts that this was serious, and needed veterinary attention. Finally today, she got to go in and meet the new cat-specific vet our local clinic has just hired. I don't take her into the clinic often. In fact, I've dragged my feet about getting her in since we moved here. She had her 3-year vaccinations right before we left Charleston, and she more than any of the other members of the Pride gets particularly traumatized by vet visits. It's entirely because of her kittenhood, of the twice-weekly trips back to the shelter while she was still a foster kitten, getting her whole body dipped in stinky sulphurous lime when just the tip of her tail had ringworm. She does not like medical settings.
We had to go in today, though. Letting her mouth just get worse was not an option. She wasn't going to let me inspect it, so I didn't know what was going on in there. Just as in her entire 5-year lifetime I have cut exactly one claw, one time, she doesn't let me mess with her paws, ears, or mouth. Not ever. I was totally honest with the vet crew that I did not know how Athena would react. When they asked whether she would bite, I had to say "Maybe?" But by the time we had driven the few blocks from our house to the clinic, she had gone from howling pitifully in the carrier to shutting down. She was totally silent by the time we walked in the door, and she stayed that way through the entire appointment. She even chose to stay in the carrier for the first several minutes we were in the room, even though I opened the escape hatch. Eventually she hopped out and explored the room.
The new doc had an amazingly calm bearing, and a magically soft touch with Athena. Sure, she spritzed a little Feliway on the towel on the table when she first arrived, but not even that could account for how Athena just settled down and quietly let the doc pet her and look at her teeth. Sure enough, the first molar on the lower right has dental disease. She saw gum rescission, and on the second look, she said she thought she saw an abscess. They worked up an estimate for how much it is going to cost ([choke] - a lot), but I didn't argue it. One bad tooth can lead to a whole lot of other problems, and quickly. This must explain why she got cranky and bitey again over the winter. It wasn't just the arrival of Harvey.
They drew blood today, and I have to wait until the results are in to make the appointment to extract the tooth. I will have time over the next week or two to work on spoiling her rotten ahead of time so she feels secure enough to know that I'm not just abandoning her when I take her to get her tooth pulled. And then I will spend a year making it up to her. Eventually she will realize how much better she feels, and maybe then she'll forgive me.
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