Poor Belle is now sporting one of those dog cones. She had to go in for surprise surgery today. It was actually really for a few different reasons. Most of them are tied to one of her ears, which had developed a hematoma. The surgery was to drain it, and they set her up with some sort of arrangement that will allow it to drain and heal better over the next 21 days.

Ray had noticed that the ear was slightly swollen and had gotten concerned. This was on Saturday, and there was really not anything that could be done so he decided to bring her in to the vet this morning.

Besides the hematoma, she also has a yeast infection in both of her ears. Besides the pain meds, steroid, and antibiotics, we have special cream we have to use on the interior of her ears twice a day. The important thing is we have to make sure not to allow Jolie to clean Belle's ears anymore. Apparently, that can increase the chance of infection so it is a big no-no.

Belle is actually doing really well. She is a little quiet, but she also seemed really perky when we picked her up this evening. Ray is planning to sleep with her all cozy on the couch tonight to make sure she doesn't hurt herself.

On the bright side, the vet thinks she knows what Belle's allergies are tied to. Every autumn/winter, she starts to have a lot of trouble with her skin. In the process, she tends to do a lot of nibbling, which wreaks havoc with her fur. In fact, she ends up bulling most of it out of her back half. The vet thinks she might have an allergy to fleas, which the surviving cat always seems to bring in every autumn/winter no matter how many flea treatments we give her. So, we have been given a new type of flea treatment for all three of them that should help keep them eliminated better.

Jolie has also been acting weird. She really missed her sister all day, and she really seems to know that something is wrong because she keeps coming to check on Belle.

The whole shebang ended up costing a little more than $1200, which is not the greatest news, but this could have turned into something really bad.