This weeks been a difficult week. Millie, our ginger tornado girl, our crazy, floofy, tripaws, loudmouth has been in the vet hospital and this place is just far too quiet without her. I’ll leave mummy to tell the story…
We were just getting ready for bed and as I put my glass in the dishwasher I heard a lounge kind of doink noise from the direction of our balcony. Normally that kind of noise is when one of the children higher up throws something like a toy off their balcony and it hits ours on the way down but it was far too late for these to be any children outside. As I shouted Millie! Daddy shouted “that sounded like a cat”. I knew Millie had been outside sitting in the well made butt grove in the planter. Me and daddy rushed outside and looked over, we couldn’t see anything so shouted for Millie, we could hear her yelling from the gardens. In my pyjamas I put on some shoes grabbed my phone as a torch and ran out to get her. She was there sitting under the building overhang, scared and confused. I grabbed her up and rushed her back inside, she was shouting loudly all the way. Once safe and back inside we gave her a big cuddle and put her onto the floor. Immediately we could see something was wrong, she was limping badly, we immediately thought she’d damaged her one back leg but when I examined it I couldn’t see anything wrong, she didn’t wince or show any signs of pain when I touched it but nevertheless there was something just not right. Despite being home she was still shouting a lot and this was worrying as well, what if, when she fell she hit something on the way down and that was the doink we heard.
I got dressed and rushed her to the emergency vet. Millie protested loudly at this all the way up and showed her displeasure by being sick in her carrier. This is normal for Millie as we think she suffers from travel sickness. Once at the vet she had a good look at Millies back leg, couldn’t find anything immediately wrong so put her on the floor to see her walking. Her gait from her back leg looked fairly normal and just as I was starting to feel stupid that I was an over anxious cat mum and had taken her up there for no reason, there it was – as she sat under the vets table I spotted her front paw bent at a horrible angle! It’s the front paw on the same side as her one back leg, that’s why we thought she had a back leg injury she was compensating for her damaged front paw.
I was amazed when Millie, snuggled in my arms, actually let the vet examine her damaged paw without any obvious sign of pain even when the vet felt it and gently moved it to try to fathom out what she had done. I thought then that this wasn’t a good sign but cats are good at hiding their pain so I put that thought to one side and agreed for the vet to admit Millie. The vet explained that Millie already only has three legs that this is serious, if she had badly damaged her paw then it might need to be removed which on a cat with three legs is even more serious than for a ‘normal’ cat for obvious reasons. We would have to wait for the result of an x-ray to see what damage she’s done.
All the time I was in the vet I could hear my phone pinging, daddy was texting to see what’s going on. I called him from the car after I’d said goodnight to Millie. I told him what had gone on and what the outcome could be and we both agreed then and there that we weren’t going to lose her. She’s so young and been through so much already that we can’t let her down, We must try everything, we took her on and she’s part of our family and for family you do whatever it takes.
After a long sleepless night and anxious morning we got a call from the vet. The X-ray had showed that she had badly damaged her paw and ripped all the ligaments which is why her paw was at such a horrible angle. They described her injury as a catastrophic one and there was no doubt she would need surgery to repair it. They were concerned though as the x ray wasn’t detailed anough to show the state of the tiny bones in her ankle and paw so to get a better idea of how to fix her they needed to do a CT scan as well. We agreed. There were two options at this point:
- Depending on the state of her ankle they could fuse it together to make a solid joint but to do this they need solid bones to fix the plates to.
- If the bones were broken as well then it would be a referral to Noel Fitzpatrick the Supervet as fixing this would be beyond the capability of our local vet, this could mean she might need to have the paw removed and a prosthetic one fitted.
It was a waiting game but there was nothing else we could do. Another sleepless night and long morning and then the call from the vet in the evening, they had the CT results and it showed that Millie hadn’t broken he bones in her paw or wrist but dislocated all of the wrist joints. The vets said they could fuse the joint and we didn’t need a further referral. This was the best outcome of the worst situation. We agreed to go ahead with the operation but there was a further complication, her paw was so swollen that they can’t operate yet, they wouldn’t be able to see the joints inside her paw well enough and the tissue wouldn’t be flexible enough to cover the wound properly so we must wait. In the meantime they had splinted it and bandaged it to help try to reduce the swelling.
We’ve been to see her every evening, she needs to know we’re there for her, that she’s loved and we want her back home as soon as we can. She’s in good spirits although drugged up to the eyeballs with pain relief but has been enjoying cuddles with us and tummy rubs. Despite all of this she’s still just the sweetest girl and I think she’s stolen the hearts of the staff at the vet hospital as they all smile at her and give her chin rubs and cuddles at every opportunity.
We managed to bring her home yesterday to spend a couple of days with us before her operation which they’ve scheduled for Monday. She’s spent some time in a cage that we’ve prepared for her to keep her from being too active and Peppar gave it a thorough inspection just to make sure it was all set up properly. She’s spent most of the weekend cuddled up on daddy’s lap sleeping, she’s exhausted bless her.
Perfectly imperfect cats are, if nothing else curious, more so than we ever imagined. Before we got Jenny our ‘normal’ cats showed no interest in escaping or exploring the balcony further than the planters and were content just sitting out there enjoying the sun. Then we got Jenny, who in true Jenny adventure cat style decided to stick her head through the railings to ‘see’ what was going on down on the ground. This prompted us to net the railings to stop any more acts of dangerous curiosity. Then we got Millie and Angelin and realising what an escapologist Millie was we re-netted, extending the netting further and moved the chairs and tables right back as far as we could away from the edge. We thought we’d got everything covered, we really did. We never thought that a cat with only one back leg could or would try to jump so far. She’s never shown us that she could jump as far as we suspect she did. We really thought we had done everything possible to prevent this from happening but now we’re re-thinking and re-designing our cat proofing and furniture set up. We’re experienced cat owners and I hope that by sharing this story we can highlight just how clever and surprising perfectly imperfect cats can be. Please, please learn from our experience and of you think a blind cat will never… or my tripaws cat can’t …. Think again, think bigger because they will and they can.
It’s me Jenny back again. As much as we didn’t like being without Millie, Angelin and I don’t really like having her back either, I know that sounds bad but she sounds different, there’s an odd noise when she moves around and her meows aren’t her normal jolly, happy Millie meows. She also smells funny so Angelin and I are just being a bit wary of her. We’re leaving her to be with mummy and daddy and we’ll keep each other occupied and comforted until Millies back to her old self again which paws 🐾 crossed won’t be too long.
Jenny’s Story 