Jaxon’s OMG cat look isn’t an impression at all, it’s an affliction.
This past SundaySunday, Karlee Trafford came home to find her cat Jaxon with her mouth stuck open in a screaming expression.
“It was pretty scary actually,” Trafford told The Dodo. “Her mouth was open all the way. I actually don’t think it could have been opened any wider.”
Trafford massaged the 3-year-old cat’s jaw, but nothing at all she tried fixed Jaxon’s mouth. Unsure of just what caused her kitty to go agape, the owner rushed Jaxon, who could still breath, meow and move her tongue, to an emergency clinic.
The pair waited several hours to see a vet, but when then finally got into the examination room, Jaxon’s mouth fixed itself. Trafford was almost ready to write off the incident as some kind of freak occurrence, but the next day it happened once again.
This time, while at the vet, the staff sedated Jaxon and then managed to pop her jaw back into place. Unsure what caused her mouth to get stuck, doctors called it a rare affliction for cats: lockjaw.
Like tetanus in humans, lockjaw is most frequently caused by an open wound that has become infected. However, Jaxon showed no other symptoms of tetanus, had no infected wounds, is caught up on vaccines and is also an indoor cat, leaving how she came down with lockjaw a bit of a mystery.
Thankfully, Jaxon doesn’t have to worry about too much in the end. She has been treated and is now returned to her normal-mouth self.
