This is one of those things that just gets to me. We had a kitten brought in by a good Samaritan on Friday. This little kitten had a severely infected eye that was beyond fixing. It needed to come out soon. I, generally, prefer to wait until a kitten this young gets a little more weight on him. However, this infection was so bad, I was concerned about this affecting the kitten's overall health. I made the decision to go ahead with surgery today, but was concerned about a patient this small becoming hypothermic (too cold) and handling the anesthesia, even for a short period of time.
Unfortunately this kitten passed away just as I was about to start surgery. He went into respiratory arrest and was gone before I could do much.
I felt terrible but had I waited - and how long would it be before he was substantially bigger? likely weeks - this infected eye could've caused other problems. I couldn't leave it for that long but having gone ahead makes me wonder...Still, that's part of making decisions in medicine = they don't always turn out the way you expect or hope.
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