I apologize in advance for how, erm, graphic this may be. It's not a pretty subject and neither my cat nor myself enjoy either the procedure or talking about it.
My 9 year old cat Gus had a bout with sepsis last week. Pretty scary stuff. His temp went up to 105.4. Although he had no visible wounds, our vet said sepsis without a clear cause was not unusual and anything could have caused it -- we don't/won't know. Days of I.V. fluids and loads of antibiotics later, he is back home and has been doing well for the past couple days. He's only on Clindamycin at home now.
In the meantime, I've been monitoring his temperature rectally at home (with a digital thermometer) to make sure the fever doesn't climb again. I hate doing that. Oh, how it scares me. Oddly enough, the "gross factor" isn't what bothers me as much as the fear that I'm accidentally going to poke too hard and puncture the inside of his rectum (potentially bringing about another infection, this one being caused by that). My vet has explained to me how to take their temp and I've taken his and his sister's several times in the past, but each time though -- each time -- I'm afraid that the slightest little "snag" I feel inserting it in is the thermometer poking through their rectum. I'm very careful, but sometimes a little snag or hang-up inside still happens.
I'm thoroughly and simultaneously amused and frustrated by online instructions for this simply including one sentence like "Then insert the thermometer in the cat's anus" as if it's as simple as that. What about that sentence seems easy?!
So, I suppose what I'm wondering is that it would be pretty difficult to injure a cat while trying to take their temp rectally, right? Not every "snag" while inserting it is necessary bad, right? I would think that if I'd poked clean through or even slightly torn inside his rectum, he would have freaked out on me.
Right....?
My 9 year old cat Gus had a bout with sepsis last week. Pretty scary stuff. His temp went up to 105.4. Although he had no visible wounds, our vet said sepsis without a clear cause was not unusual and anything could have caused it -- we don't/won't know. Days of I.V. fluids and loads of antibiotics later, he is back home and has been doing well for the past couple days. He's only on Clindamycin at home now.
In the meantime, I've been monitoring his temperature rectally at home (with a digital thermometer) to make sure the fever doesn't climb again. I hate doing that. Oh, how it scares me. Oddly enough, the "gross factor" isn't what bothers me as much as the fear that I'm accidentally going to poke too hard and puncture the inside of his rectum (potentially bringing about another infection, this one being caused by that). My vet has explained to me how to take their temp and I've taken his and his sister's several times in the past, but each time though -- each time -- I'm afraid that the slightest little "snag" I feel inserting it in is the thermometer poking through their rectum. I'm very careful, but sometimes a little snag or hang-up inside still happens.
I'm thoroughly and simultaneously amused and frustrated by online instructions for this simply including one sentence like "Then insert the thermometer in the cat's anus" as if it's as simple as that. What about that sentence seems easy?!
So, I suppose what I'm wondering is that it would be pretty difficult to injure a cat while trying to take their temp rectally, right? Not every "snag" while inserting it is necessary bad, right? I would think that if I'd poked clean through or even slightly torn inside his rectum, he would have freaked out on me.
Right....?
