This morning, I noticed that Ginger’s right eye was injured and tearing. He was also squinting, but he ate his breakfast as usual.
There was a massive fight between Smurfy and Robin yesterday and Ginger was not involved at all. When I intervened, Ginger was just looking on.
Perhaps there was a fight last night?
Luckily the clinic managed to slot us in (I’m so thankful for this).
The vet says Ginger’s eye is most likely due to trauma and not an infection. This means, it was due to an injury. He could have accidentally scratched it, especially when scratching his ear. Or perhaps there was a fight last night? But I doubt any of the Monsters would have dared to intentionally injure Ginger. After all, they all hero-worship and love him to the moon and back.
So maybe it was an accidental scratching.
In some cases, a mouth infection can lead to eye infection too, but this would not be Ginger’s case.
The vet checked Ginger’s eye discharge and there are inflammatory cells only, no bacteria. So she prescribed Nicole eye drop, twice daily, for 10 days but we should see improvement after three days.
Then, the vet noticed that Ginger’s ears are very dirty. I just cleaned his ears yesterday, but they are dirty again today. So the vet checked and pointed out to me the black (actually more of dark grey) dots on the inside of the pinna. She said this could be one of three things:
- Ceruminous adenoma – benign tumours
- Ceruminous adenomacarcicoma – malignant tumours (yes, cancerous), is aggressive and can invade into lymph nodes
- Ceruminous glandular hypoplasia – small growths in the ear canal; causes unknown or due to chronic inflammation
When I heard the “carcinoma” word, I got worried and asked how we can ascertain which it is. The vet said the only way is to just monitor the growth of the black dots; they might increase in size or number. If it is the malignant type, for severe cases, it could result in surgically removing the outer ear.
But she told me not to be overly worried. I just need to monitor the black dots. So we took photos of the inside of the pinna of both ears today. The vet also later said that should the tumours increase in number (if that’s what they are), there is a method of freezing to remove them called cryotherapy. But we will come to that if the time comes.
Ginger’s ears were cleaned thoroughly and the an examination of the ear wax in it showed a fungal infection. For this, the vet prescribed Surolan ear drops, twice daily, for 10 days. Ginger’s ears should also be cleaned whenever they are dirty.
Right ear – note the black dot.
Right ear – two more black dots.
Right ear – a group of multiple black dots.
Left ear – black dots.
Left ear – a black dot at the top.
So I would just need to monitor the progression of these black dots from now on.
We came home and I applied his eye drop and the ear drops.
And Ginger went to hide.