Fun With Internal Parasites

It's been 14 years since I've had the pleasure of dealing with feline intestinal worms, and 20 or so since I've actually been thrilled to witness the exodus of tapeworm segments. Back in my veterinary clinic volunteer days, I got to see all kinds of exciting, gross things every day. Since then...not so much. We've been blessed with healthy cats for years. Our first cat, Ferrari had a whole grocery list of health problems when we first got him, but since we got him all cleaned up there haven't been too many issues.

Thursday I noticed the tell-tale 'grain of rice' segments sticking to Valrhona's back end. Sunday I got to see a fresh, moving tapeworm segment. Yag. Luckily we had made an appointment for her this morning to get her started on her vaccinations (if it hasn't been obvious, we finally found a good home for her...ours!). What I didn't know is if over-the-counter worm treatments were effective on tapeworms.

They're not. Tapeworms need a different drug. I wish they'd warn people what that worm pill is going to do in the hours to come. Within 10 minutes of getting out of bed tonight, I was trying to give a struggling, hydrophobic little suicide diarrhea bomber a bath. NOT fun. For either one of us.

Once that was done, I still had to administer her ear drops. Which have to be refrigerated. Oh yes, they discovered a nice ear infection this morning at the clinic, too. Her ears were a little dirty, but I hadn't noticed her scratching them that much any more, so I totally missed that. Luckily no ear mites, though.

I guess her day was still rougher than mine. I didn't have needles stuck in my ass, have my belly shaved to double-check for a spay scar, cotton swabs rammed down my ears, cold drops squeezed in them, and then have my rear end dunked in the laundry sink and wiped. Shortly before I left for work she was curled up in a basket sound asleep. And snoring!