Our little cat Lily has bad teeth.
When she went in for her check up, our vet found that her gums were red and irritated, and since we haven't been brushing her teeth, she now needed to go in, and have a dental cleaning under anesthesia.
We didn't love it (or the price) but we don't want our cat to lose her teeth, so we took her in.
However, once under anesthesia, it turns out that it was worse than our vet originally thought. She not only had irritated gums, apparently she has some condition where her immune system attacks her enamel of her teeth, wearing them away into nothing. She had to have her worst tooth removed, and another is close to follow if we don't start regularly brushing her teeth. Apparently it was nothing we were doing wrong (although brushing would have helped) but just a genetic condition.
The worst is that even IF we are faithful and dedicated to brushing our cute feline's teeth, she will still most likely have no teeth when she is an old kitty. The positive is that even if she loses all of her teeth, she can still eat fine, its just going to be wet food that she gums down, and she will still live a happy life.
It hurt paying more than we expected for her visit, but the saddest news for me is that even if we do everything right... she still will lose her teeth, just slower. The vet assured us she will be fine... but I wouldn't want to live without teeth. Sigh...
Did I mention it also makes me ache to see her little shaved wrists from where they had to draw her blood?
How will I ever manage having my future kids get hurt, if having my cat go through things is this tough?
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