Warning: this post is gross

Prince had something wrong with his eye.

It started about four days ago, when he came in from his adventures far afield with his eye closed and watery.

Let me start by saying, defensively, that I didn't MEAN for Prince and Otto to be outdoor cats. When I adopted them from the foster organization, I promised that I wouldn't let them go outdoors. I even signed something to this effect. But after about a month of living with us, they got DETERMINED. They dashed out the door whenever we opened it.

It was probably my mistake, because I had let them wander around the totally fenced backyard for a little while, and they just got the spirit of wilderness in their little feline organs, and, the gig was up -- they would no longer stay indoors. And they had no interest in staying in the backyard either. After I retrieved them a hundred times and stressed out the neighbors, all of us running after these identical twin troublemakers, Hub-D said that I had to let it GO. I had to let them be outdoor cats, because the alternative was WAY more stress and trouble than it was worth.

I hated to do this, to give in, and just say, "FINE. You guys want to go out and get RABIES, FINE." But Hub-D was right -- I was so worked up about trapping the cats in the house, and rounding them up whenever they snuck outside (which was about 10 times/day) that it was too much anxiety. And whenever anyone came to visit, we would attack them at the front door -- "Don't let the CATS OUT!!!! Aaaah! You DID! Now you have to help us CATCH THEM!"

So they are indoor/outdoor cats, and they have a cat flap, which is occasionally used by a raccoon, and I've just given up.

But then Prince came in with this EYE. And after my myriad feline adventures over the years, I am not impressed with cats who have "gammy eyes," or, as I like to call it, "Pirate Eye" (arrrr). Usually the problem resolves itself after a few days -- just some dust or a little scratch, and no reason to haul everyone off to the vet, yowling in the carrier, only to have them ARRIVE at the vet with a totally normal eye.

Prince's eye wasn't getting any better. It was getting worse and increasingly totally gross. And my threshold for "gross" is pretty high, after caring for our dear deceased Mega-T for three years, whose eye wept red goo every single day of his life.

Prince was miserable, moping on the sofa and not even showing much interest in the dead bird Otto hauled onto the front porch for everyone's viewing pleasure.

So we went to the vet. And she numbed his eye, took him into the back (every time they take the cat into the "back" it costs an additional $50 I've found), and plumbed around with a special EYE instrument, and found what she initally took to be a little blade of grass.

So she tugged on it. And it looked like a larger blade of grass. And then, in her words, "It kept coming and coming and coming."

It was an intact FOXTAIL that had lodged itself completely into his inner eye socket.

Although the photo below is somewhat washed out from the flash, I hope you can appreciate the length of this reed, so recently living in my cat's eye socket, as well as the thickness of the base of the blade, which the vet pulled out last, to her utter horror and no small amount of satisfaction.