It would be a turn up for the books if cardunculus turned out to be a young, single political activist from a tough background living in Damascus, and not half of a pair of white, middle-aged, middle-class, graduate, ex-City downshifters, living in peaceful obscurity in southeast England. Blogspot will let you have multiple blogs, maybe I should try out some new personas. Still, they say stick to what you know.
We have an invalid cat. This has been distressing for all concerned, but could have been much worse. Early last week our black cat started hobbling on his left hind leg. There was no obvious wound or bite, so we thought we'd better leave it a day or two and see how things developed. The last time the grey tabby developed a limp, having a history of septic bites in her feet and a dodgy immune system, we rushed her to the vet immediately. Once released from the cat basket she stomped about the consulting room without limping at all. The vet consoled us that this happened often, as animals in a strange place would make an effort not to appear weak and vulnerable, and gave us a prescription for antibiotics to present to the reception desk if she developed a septic bite later. She didn't. It must have been a sprain.
By Thursday the limp was worse, not better, and the cat was sitting with his lower leg stuck out at an odd angle. He was quite happy to be picked up, and we still couldn't find any external wound or injury, but we thought he'd better see a vet before the weekend, and booked him in for Friday morning. We have used the same practice for nearly twenty years. They are very good, and the vet we saw has known the black cat since he was a tiddler, having microchipped him when he was a kitten. She listened to our account of what seemed to be wrong with the cat, and a look of concern came over her face when we mentioned the leg sticking out at an odd angle. It appeared that the most likely cause of his problems was damage to his cruciate ligament. She took him away to be examined with the help of a veterinary nurse, and reappeared a while later without him. We were not going to be sent away with antibiotics this time. Instead she wanted to sedate and x-ray the cat, and given his age (12) apologetically suggested that really blood tests would be a good idea.
We went back just before five to collect the cat, and saw a different vet, who showed us the x-rays. They had been a shock to the vets and were a shock to us. The lesser shock was that he had snapped his cruciate ligament completely away from the bone. We could see the little detatched bone fragment waving around inside the equivalent of his knee joint, which is the joint half way up a cat's hind leg (I always get confused about how the bones and joints in the legs of quadrupeds equate to those of humans). The bigger shock was that the x-ray revealed he had about a dozen shotgun pellets in him. Our immediate thought was that he had been shot, had jumped out of his skin, and snapped his ligament in the panic. The Systems Administrator had looked up ligament problems in cats when we got home from the vet in the morning, and overweight is a frequent cause, which doesn't apply to the black cat, who is a svelte and healthy outdoor creature.
There are two possible approaches to treating a detached cruciate ligament in a cat, the vet explained. They could operate, using 50lb nylon fishing line to hold the two halves of the joint together until it healed. The cat would need to rest for a week or so, to the extent of being confined to a room. She favoured the operation route herself. Or the cat could rest completely, what they call 'cage rest', for 6 to 8 weeks. One of the partners in the practice was more conservative, and favoured cage rest. They'd rung a vet in Ipswich who specialised in orthopaedics, and he was firmly in the operation camp. It was important to start doing something soon, before the cat became accustomed to the pain, walked on the damaged leg, and wore the lining of the joint away. She said that the operation was now routine, with a good expected outcome. and that they carried out around two a week. However, if we did not want to risk it or could not afford it, the cage rest cure worked eventually. She gave us the cat and some strong painkillers, and told us to go home for the weekend and decide.
We already had decided, after our initial consultation and internet researches. Putting a twelve year old cat under general anaesthetic isn't ideal, but the thought of keeping him shut in a cage for two months over the summer, while he fretted and pined and the other cats came and jeered at him, was too unpleasant to be seriously contemplated. We booked him in for surgery on Monday morning.
He survived the operation, was kept at the vets overnight for the administration of strong painkillers, and we collected him yesterday morning. He was terribly, terribly pleased to see us, and purred hugely in the consulting room while the nurse talked us through his aftercare. He hadn't eaten anything, but she thought that was because he was upset, as he hadn't been at all responsive when the nurses tried to make a fuss of him. The shotgun injuries turned out to be nothing to do with the damaged leg, as we'd begun to suspect, given he'd not shown any signs of soreness in recent days. He could have been carrying the pellets for years, and they would never have been discovered if he hadn't been x-rayed for something else. We will never know how or when he was shot, though I need to compose a carefully worded and polite letter to the local farmers reminding them that their land does abut residential properties, and that we have pets and they need to be careful when rabbiting.
The cat was almost hysterically pleased to get home, and hopped around on three legs purring, though he still wouldn't eat anything. Then he became very tired, and since then has been mostly lying down, installed in the study with a litter tray and his own food. He has a poodle shave on his leg up to hip level, which is not a good look for cats, and a 10cm operation scar up the outside of his thigh. We take it in turns to sit with him sometimes, and he still purrs when we talk to him. ( When you have downshifted you end up painting your own house instead of calling in a decorator, but you do have time to spend with your pets when they're ill). He is now eating, and is not trying to chew his stiches out, and it is going better than we might have expected.
It is not very convenient, though. When he is not lying down he has a surprising turn of speed, and we've been keeping the inner hall and veranda doors shut so that he can't escape into the garden. This impedes the free flow of the other cats, who have to be let in and out, are missing out on lap time, and are spooked by the whole thing, especially the black cat's sister, who is so suspicious of any change to routine that she knows if I am even thinking about taking her to the vet. It also impedes the free flow of air, since normally we have the doors propped open in the summer. We had planned to go to look at some Cotswolds gardens next week, and a friend had kindly agreed to look after the place while we were away, but we can't leave the cat with her. She has looked after them before, but this one only likes people he knows (basically us) and can't be trusted not to disappear for the duration (not sensible a week after the op) or humanely be left locked in a room without friendly (in his view) company. And he has to go for a follow-up appointment next week. By coincidence our friend has had another request to mind somebody else's pets for the same three nights, so at least she'll be able to accept that offer, and we hadn't booked anywhere to stay, thinking we'd get a late deal, but it would have been nice to go to the Cotswolds in the rose season. The Systems Administrator even turned down an invitation to a cricket match because we were going to be away.
As for the cost, a colleague was lamenting the expense as well as the pain of needing to have root canal surgery, and all I can say is that having a cruciate ligament repaired in a geriatric cat is getting beyond root canals and into bottom-end implant territory, and we don't have pet medical insurance. But we still have the cat. He must have used up at least two of his nine lives, though.
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