Older cat had abscess, now health question

Hi, my boy Gus is 14 (he weighs 17.6 lbs.) and I rushed him to a pet ER to get a burst abscess drained and cleaned around 1 am on Tuesday. He seemed much happier when we got home, and was willing to cuddle, etc.

He sleeps a lot-which is typical, and I've got him on the antiobiotic Clavamox.

Here's the thing, he's been big on sleeping next to me all day today, and hadn't had any water all day. I brought his water bowl to him about 20 minutes ago, and he drank about half of it in one go. We just had his kidneys tested last Saturday before the abscess, and they were in perfect condition, but I'm being a worried mama and watching for any bad signs.

The hole where the abscess was looks pretty good, there's minimal drainage, it's a faint red, there was a little bit of yellow (almost none) this morning, so I figured that was normal, but should I be worried, or is my kitty just lazy and got hot and wanted to drink his daily amount all at once?

(He's on dry food with a tiny wedge of wet pate once a day. The dry food is Proactive Health Senior Plus and the wet food is Natural Balance Chicken and Liver Pate)

I know I'm probably just worrying too much, but I need some reassurance because the vet didn't catch the abscess, I did, even after repeated phone calls and visits saying something was wrong, so I'm trying to be a good owner and watch for things, but not be crazy and overly concerned.

Thank you!!

I've never heard of excess drinking as a side effect of clavamox, but it would seen strange for his kidneys to fail just since Saturday.  Perhaps this is just a fluke?  I would just keep an eye on him and see if this behavior continue and if it does, I would definitely call the Vet and ask what might be the cause.

Are you putting warm compresses on the abcess to help with the healing...it helps draw out any excess puss that might be in there, and really does help with the healing process.  did they give you any cream to put on it too?  When my out girl had an abcess last year, she did lay around for a day or day afterwards while her body healed, but I never noticed any excessive drinking.  She did eat like a horse when she got home from the Vet's however, since she wasn't eating well before we figure out what was wrong

I do think it's entirely possible that he was tired and resting, but when you gave him water, he realized how thirsty he was and took advantage. He could just have been a little dehydrated from all the stress.

I'm not familiar with the ingredients of your dry food, but most senior formulas have more carbs which if your boy is overweight at all is not what he needs. Higher carbs would put him at greater risks of diabetes if he's overweight. Please go to www.catinfo.org for more info. It's written by a vet and has a lot of great info on feline nutrition and related cat health issues.

msgreenjeens: Yes, we're doing warm compresses twice a day-we get a little drainage from that but not much, but I think it's supposed to lessen as it heals. He's getting very frustrated with his E-cone because he wants to lick the wound. They did not give us cream to put on the wound, only the oral fluid antibiotic. Gus did have a completely liquid poop today, but I'm attributing that to the massive amount of water he drank.

He seems to be spreading out his water consumption today-he had some this morning, which is more normal for him, whereas yesterday the first time he drank was when I brought him the bowl. I'm going to watch his litter today and see if we get something more solid-his poops the first day after we got home were normal.

vball: Thank you for the website recommendation! We're trying very hard to watch his weight-he actually used to weigh 20 lbs., so getting him down to 17.6 has been a struggle. He gets carefully measured amounts of both foods, but I'll check out the website and make sure we're doing the very best we can for my old buddy.

Hopefully he just wasn't aware of how thirsty he was. I think I'm overly nervous because the abscess scared me so badly. It's very frightening when you don't know what's going on.

That diarrhea could be caused by the antibiotic too.  My guess is that's exactly the cause of it.  Clavamox always made my boy throw up. 

for a quick recovery.  With my girl, after 5 days, she was completely healed up