Our 16-year-old cat, Clementine, was found to have a mass in her ear when we took her to the vet because she was scratching at her ear until it bled. The vet suggested removing the ear entirely, as the mass is already partially covering her ear canal and is not removable without damaging the ear. Her blood work is good, but given her age and her anxiety at the vet, we hesitate to do that. She's absolutely terrified of being at the vet's office - she growls, moans, and loses bowel control, even with doses of gabupentamin(sp?) the night before and two hours before her appointment. So, we've been giving her antibiotics daily for over a month now (drop form), but she still scratches at the ear until it bleeds and, when she does, it stinks like infection. We now have an Elizabethan collar on her to keep from scratching, but after a week of that, the smell isn't getting better. We're a little worried that she may have fluid that has drained from the mass down into her ear canal and it can't get out, because we can hear sloshing when she shakes her head. We've called our vet a few times, but her opinion is that the only thing we can do is what we are doing already, or do the surgery. She's miserable in the collar. It's impeding her ability to get entirely into the litter box, so she's urinating all around it and then can't clean her paws when she steps in it. Without the collar, she scratches until she bleeds, then sprays it all over the house, which makes us not only worried for her, but our other two cats and our 5-year-old daughter. We're even more worried that she could suffer a major infection if we can't get the fluid out of her ear. Do you have any suggestions for other things we can do to get her symptoms under control and give her a good life for the few years she likely has left? We're getting a little desperate.