Call for assistance: Gray Cat's eye ointment — and my inability to apply it

Gray Cat (above, in her — and my — favorite place, rendering assistance as only she can as I create bookofjoe) has had something going on around her left eye for about six weeks.

Long story short: The upper and lower lids intermittently get swollen and clear fluid sometimes drips down the fur alongside her nose. Sometimes the eye is completely shut. Nothing in the eyeball itself — no redness, discoloration, etc. The swelling comes and goes, sometimes from not there at all to severe in the course of a couple hours.

She's otherwise well: chasing (and catching) frogs, running around the house, eating, sleeping, purring, playing, napping and just generally being the perfect companion, as always.

I've been meaning to take her to the vet but each time I call to make an appointment, by the time the appointment comes the eye looks normal so I cancel it.

Last Thursday I got lucky and got an appointment for an hour from my call, the result of a cancellation.

I took her in for an examination with the excellent Dr. Fietz — who knows her and in fact saw her when I initially took her in earlier this year after deciding to formally adopt her, putting paid to her status as a neighborhood stray cat — and his diagnosis was: infection v allergy.

Jeez, I knew that.

I was reminded of how we viewed the specialty of dermatology back when I was in med school, to wit: "Wet on the dry, dry on the wet, and if that doesn't work use steroids."

But I digress.

The vet gave me a little tube of Vetropolycin HC ointment (bacitracin-neomycin-polymixin with hydrocortisone acetate 1%) and said put a dab on the corner of the eyeball toward the lateral canthus three times a day for a week to 10 days.

If the problem resolved, it was infection; if not, it's an allergy, and so live with it and use the medication whenever there's eye swelling.

That's all well and good when I'm at the vet's office and I'm holding Gray Cat in an all-enveloping body hug embracing all four legs while the vet shows me how and where to apply the ointment.

But let me tell you something: as of this afternoon, some 72 hours (and 8 attempts at putting the medicine where it's supposed to go) after that initial assisted event:

1. I've got scratches all over my right hand and arm,

2. the result of Gray Cat's unhappiness with my futile attempts to restrain her while I attempt  to put the stuff in her eye, and

3.  I know there has to be a better way.

Help!