It took Jojo about 6-8 months to completely heal. He was a super mess and nearly dead before I rescued him.
Purrs louder than any cat I ever heard.
When Buddy first started hanging out with us, he was one of the “community cats” around our complex. Only time we saw abscesses on him was on his head. He was actually very patient with us squeezing out the yuck, then applying peroxide followed by Neosporin (he seemed to understand that we were helping him recover faster from the injury). Since he decided to move in and has decided the pampered indoor kitty lifestyle is a good thing, we haven’t been treating his war wounds 
. Dunno when he went through TNR, but it was long before we got to know him.
It probably itched it, you poking around. Felt good to him.
Getting crud out gotta feel good.
I’m a billion years old and I’ve had cats my entire life…I’ve never had that happen before. Gawd the smell
I almost threw up and my kid had to talk me down
“Go do something else if you’re gonna be sick!!”
It is one terrible odor.
I’ve seen Dr.Pol release abscesses on cows and horses. Can you imagine?
I’ve heard many times from other medical personnel that for them, abscesses have the most problematic odors, because you don’t know what they’re going to smell like until they’re opened. Diarrhea and vomit don’t bother them much, because the smell is predictable, but abscesses? Not so much.
A friend was doing his medical internship/residency. He was assisting in a laparotomy for a failed colostomy. The abdomen was opened and found to be full of fecal matter. My friend woke up on a gurney in the hall, with no memory of passing out.
As a child I helped my dad drain an absess on our cat once. He needed help holding her and my mom would be useless for such. I held a towel on her to help secure her head as he lanced a spot on her hip.
It smelled very foul. He had some sulfa drugs that we dosed her with, and she was irritated but fine.