The Nerve of this Injury!

Talk about a wound that sends shivers down your spine! A feral cat was in for a standard neuter when something odd was observed going on with his cheek. Almost the entire medical team (and the admin team) was stumped with what could be protruding from his face. Possibly a twig, some type of plastic, ingrown whisker? No one could figure out what we were looking at. After shaving his fur back and cleaning the area, we ever so slightly started moving around the foreign object. Then, we all suddenly realized a facial nerve was poking out of this poor cats cheek!

Our running theory is during a fight, another cats paw might have penetrated and hooked just right where it tore the nerve and pulled it out of the puncture wound. It looked like it had been there a while but didn't show much sign of closing back up. After cleaning the area/puncture, Doctor carefully trimmed the dead end of the nerve, it retracted back into his cheek, and the area received a single suture.

This must have been such a horrible injury for this poor guy. The kind of injury that makes your toes curl just thinking about! The cat was returned to the area he was trapped, the sutures will dissolve away when the puncture is healed, and we imagine he is living a much more peaceful life now!