SOS: Roommate sent this photo!

ashcuppycake

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I'm at home visiting family and my roommate sent me this picture of my cat. It's about a 2 hour drive home and the vet in town is closed on Sundays. The nearest emergency vet is 1 hour away. How worried do I need to be? Does anyone know what this could be?
 

fodder

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Looks like he's been in a fight  or something similar. Should probably have stitches.
It's quite hard to tell from pics how bad it actually is.  Personally id take him to the vet but having said that this kind of wound is not life threatening for a cat so long as it doesn't get infected. If you cant get him to the vet then maybe try to keep him indoors for a few days and keep the area as clean as you can. You don't want to be using anything like detol or anything like that, just warm water.  Again though, it's hard to tell how bad it is so you will have to use your judgement to decide if you think he needs to go to the emergency vet for stitches.

One thing to consider is that stitches need to be done fairly recently after the event. If it's been more than a day the vet will either leave the wound to heal on it's own(if it's not too bad) or will have to cut the edges away around the wound to get a clean heal. It will probably end up costing more if the latter is the case but then again the emergency vet isn't cheap either. It's a tough call.
 
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ashcuppycake

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Thank you for responding so quickly! He's an indoor only cat and it seems like he's not bleeding any longer. I was considering using warm saline solution to clean the wound and putting a cone on his head so he wouldn't mess with the wound
 

fodder

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sounds like a good idea. Interesting that he managed that indoors. There must be something sharp around somewhere. Amazing the things cats manage to do to themselves huh 
 
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ashcuppycake

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UPDATE: I took him to the vet when I got off work today. He's staying overnight so the doctor can see him first thing tommorrow morning. He had a ruptured abscess that looked a lot worse in person then in picture. He's getting a shot to reduce swelling and some antibiotics
 

stephanietx

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Glad you got him to the vet and that he's getting the medical attention he needs. Hope all goes well with his treatment. Any idea how he got the abscess?
 
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ashcuppycake

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That part is still a mystery. He's been really clingy ever since I brought him back from the vet. But his wound already looks 10X better
 
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