Mr. Chubby Cheek

"His face is swollen." It was Saturday night of Memorial Day weekend, and I was looking up at Zharo as he was perched on my chest in the bed . Francisco is usually pretty quick to dismiss my concerns as exaggerations, but he half-halfheartedly said "let me see" and took a look. He said it didn't look too bad, but then apparently he started Googling it that night, which left him with a case of anxiety that was hard to shake.   

I wasn't even out of bed in the morning when Francisco cracked the door open to poke his head in and let me know that he was taking Zharo to the vet. He'd learned that it was likely an abscess, and it was something he wanted to get looked at right away. I wanted to go as well, so I started getting ready and we dropped in at Grady Veterinary Hospital. They're open 24 hours and provide emergency services.

Zharo's face is quite dark, so the cheek swelling may not be immediately obvious, but for us, it was quite noticeable. He has a very slim, angular face, so it definitely stood out.

We probably waited about a half hour or so to be seen by the vet, but that's perfectly acceptable considering we didn't have an appointment or anything.  Zharo was in good spirits, but he definitely wasn't happy about the thermometer situation and he hissed when he got an anti-inflammatory shot. The vet said he had a slight fever and a broken tooth, and he saw a little bit of pus in his mouth. He gave us some medicine, but he said that was just a band-aid and Zharo would almost certainly need to have a tooth extraction. The Vet Tech came in to show us how to administer antibiotics, which involved squirting a syringe in his mouth. 

The vet said the swelling should subside within 48 hours. I had plans to go home and see my parents the following weekend, and we were hoping to push any procedures out till the following week. But on Wednesday, his cheek was still looking pretty chubby and it didn't look like the swelling had really gone down. We called the vet back, and they recommended the extraction sooner rather than later in that case. We were able to get him scheduled for surgery the next day.  Unfortunately, that meant we had to cancel our plans to go home since we would have to be available to administer medicine, and Zharo doesn't particularly like an 8-hour car ride under the best of circumstances.

There was an underlying fear in all this that we really struggled with. We had a cat who passed away from a routine dental procedure (you can read about him here), and it was an absolutely heart-breaking experience.  I'm proud that we were able to push past those feelings and move quickly to act in Zharo's best interests.  After his surgery Thursday, his face was already looking much better over the weekend. He had to take pain meds for three days, and he just finished up his antibiotics yesterday.

Francisco shared with me after the fact that the vet called him at 10 AM that morning just to confirm that they were indeed going to need to extract his tooth. When he hadn't heard anything within a couple hours, he called the vet back and they assured him that Zharo was doing fine. Francisco is one of the calmest, most level-headed people I know, and I could tell he was very anxious and concerned for our sweet boy.

I'm definitely of the "pets are family" camp, and I am ecstatic that Zharo has recovered and is looking so much better. Now we just need to adopt a tooth brushing habit and stick with it!