Mama’s Dental
There are *lots* of people in the United States who have a cat. One survey found that there were 94,200,000 pet cats in the year ending 2018! But you know how many people take their cat to the vet? In 2011, 44.9% of owners never took their cat to the vet. That’s MILLIONS of cats who never see a vet! And pro tip: that’s bad.
Now look, I hate going to the vet. They look at my mouth, and they smoosh my tummy, and sometimes they poke my butt. It’s not cool.
I’ll admit, I don’t make it easy to get me to the vet. I run, and I hide, and I spit, and I claw my humans. Getting into that small box and then into the bigger box is just not fun.
And my humans might think I’m totally fine, because as a cat, I am *really* good at hiding anything that might be wrong with me. That’s kind of a throwback to my kitty ancestors. If a cat yowls in pain in the wild, their cat friends aren’t going to come help them, because, well, cats don’t really have cat friends. Instead, some big, gnarly thing that wants to eat me would show up, and if I’m injured, well, I’m in trouble. So I hide pain, even though I’m in a house with humans who would take care of me.
So now you know taking me to the vet sucks, and I’m going to hide my pain.
But did you know that after cats turn 3, they are WAY more likely to have gum disease, just like humans? And if you’re not brushing your cat’s teeth on a regular basis, you *really* gotta take ’em to the vet.
And that’s what the humans did with Mama.
Mama had to go in a couple weeks ago, because she had a lump on her mouth. The lump went away by the time she went in, but the vet looked at Mama’s mouth and…yeah. Not so good. So the human female had to schedule a dental appointment so Mama’s teeth could be cleaned and she could have some removed.
In the weeks before the dental, the human female felt a lot of stress. (I know because she was coming downstairs earlier than usual in the morning, so I made sure to put my butt in her face while she drank her brown liquid to let her know she was ok.) The female called the vet to make sure about the time to bring in Mama, when to stop feeding her, when to stop giving her water, stuff like that. She got all the instructions and went over them with the human male, so he could help her take care of Mama the night before.
And the night before SUCKED for Mama. She didn’t get ANY food after 8pm! And no water after 7am! Now, the human male admitted she actually got some food at 8:30, because she went snuffling around to find some leftover bits (hey, she lived in a junkyard, she knows how to find food!) So the human female was a little worried about that, but the vet said it would be fine.
The morning of, the human female and male got Mama into the carrier, and she was NOT HAPPY. She laid way down, and tried to smoosh herself into the corner of the carrier so the human female couldn’t touch her. The ride was pretty quick, though — only 15 minutes — and once they got to the vet everything went really fast.
The vet came out to talk to the humans, and went over what to expect. The human female started crying (stressed, I told ya), and the vet told her she was a cat person, too, and had done lots of cat tooth surgeries, and she would get in touch with her a *lot* to let her know how things were going.
It wasn’t perfect, but it did help the human female feel a little better. She handed Mama over to the vet, and she and the male went home.
And about an hour later, she got a text message…it was the vet! The vet took a picture of Mama and animated it to let the human female know that Mama’s bloodwork looked good, and they were getting ready to proceed! How cool is that?!
And then, not too long after that, the human female got a phone call…and it was the vet again! Mama was about to go under anesthesia, and everything was looking good. And then…you know what’s coming…another phone call, letting the human female know Mama was under, things were looking good, and three teeth were going to be pulled. Ouch. The vet also told the human female that Mama had “reserved roots”, which meant that a lot of Mama’s teeth broke off when she lived in the junkyard, but the roots stayed behind. Ick. So the vet said she’d try to get some of those out so her mouth felt better.
About an hour after that phone call…yep…the phone rang again. It was the clinic, letting the human female know that Mama was done with surgery, things were looking good, and she could come pick her up in a few hours. The human female was anxious to see Mama, but knew it was a good thing that the vet wanted to watch Mama after the anesthetic wore off, because with Mama’s FIV+ status you never know what her immune system might do.
At 4pm, the humans were at the vet’s office, waiting in the parking lot to pick up Mama. The vet came out and explained that everything went really well, and asked if the humans wanted Mama’s canine tooth! The female human said yes, and asked why it had to be pulled. Gum disease, said the vet — it was super loose, so it had to go. But it’s beautiful, and you can see a picture of it below.
Then the vet went back inside, and came back with…Mama! She was a little groggy, but let the human female pet her, and was overall pretty chill on the way home.
When she got home, the rest of us knew she didn’t smell right, so the humans put her in the office by herself to relax for awhile. She asked for food right away, which was a good sign. The humans gave her a little bit, but not too much, because they didn’t want her to get sick. Don’t know what they were thinking on that one — there’s no way Mama would ever let food come back out the front once it had gone in! But she had to wait a couple hours to make sure she was ok.
That night, the human female mixed pain meds and antibiotics into Mama’s food, and fed it to her. Mama snarfed it down like …well, like a cat who hadn’t had a lot of food for 24 hours. The pain meds made her woozy, and she ended up going to sleep pretty quickly after that.
The next morning, Mama got another dose of pain meds, and spent a lot of time hanging out in the office. That’s how the humans knew she wasn’t 100% — remember, we hide our pain, so you have to look for behavior changes to tell how we’re really feeling. In the mornings, Mama typically jumps on the human female’s chair, and we tag team the female to give us pettings. That didn’t happen the next morning, so the humans kept an eye on her to make sure she was ok. By that night, she was doing much better, and wandering around the house a little bit more.
It’s been a few days since Mama had her teeth pulled. She’s still getting antibiotics once a day for the next week, and has to go back to the vet next week to make sure she’s healing ok. But she’s eating, and asking for pettings, and trying to steamroll QQ, so while she might not feel totally better, she’s definitely better than she was.
Untreated tooth decay can cause all kinds of problems, especially in a cat whose immune system isn’t so good. All in all, while it was kind of a scary experience for Mama and the human female, the risks of Mama’s tooth decay outweighed the scariness of going to the vet, and Mama will be healthier in the long run.
