Tom has eye and bottom trouble

Tom came in with a sore eye the other day, so I took him to the vet. There was a tiny thorn lodged in his eyeball, clearly visible, and she tried to flush it out with saline, but it wouldn’t budge. She didn’t want to use tweezers because it might rupture Tom’s eyeball. When we arrived home I got my own tweezers out and almost had a go at it, but James (and Tom!) were quite rightly terrified at the damage that I might accidentally do, and I lost my nerve. So Tom was referred to the “veterinary ophthalmologist” (I didn’t know that these existed until this week!) who removed the thorn today under general anaesthetic. The eye did indeed leak and he needed stitches so it’s just as well that I didn’t try to remove the thorn myself! Poor Tommy. 
Of course yesterday morning, before Tom’s operation was even decided on, it was time to set off on our holiday to the Cotswolds. Chanel and Angela have both been wonderful for taking him to his various and extremely expensive appointments. I have been on the phone to them and to both vets many times during our journey and from the air show today, worried about our boy. To add to Tom’s woes, Angela discovered an open wound on the side of Tom’s bottom yesterday, near the base of his tail. The veterinary ophthalmologist (who must have had previous experience with bottoms before she specialised in eyes) thinks that it’s a cat bite that has caused an abscess, which has then burst. * She rather insultingly mentioned several times that Tom must have been running away from the other cat. To look on the bright side, the antibiotics that Tom is already being given for his sore eye should stop his bottom wound from becoming infected. The ophthalmologist cleaned it all out and Tom is wearing a cone so that he doesn’t claw at either his eye or his bot. What a week he is having.

* We don’t know whether the eye and bottom incidents took place during the same cat fight. This may forever remain a mystery.