Heartbroken…

Today has been was the hardest day of my life (so far) and it’s only 11am. Just under 2 hours ago I dropped Lloyd off to have his front left leg amputated and it broke my heart!

 

Lloyd is 10 years old, and he is having to go through this at the end of an awful 6 months of surgery, cage rest and pain. Here is is his story…

Lloyd has always been an outside cat, he gets into scraps and can be right littler terror. Since the horror of the ‘UK Cat Killer’ we made sure he was in once it got dark and had a curfew on his cat flap so he could only go out during the day times. He didn’t like this to start with but he learnt to accept it.

We moved house in Feb last year (Luckily as the ‘Cat Killer’ tragically struck in our old road just a week ago) we used to live in a flat with a garden that was accessible down an alley way but moved to a much bigger property with a nice big garden which we thought would be prefect for our little Kitty Cat (I should mention at this point that Lloyd is by far Little and is a big 6.5kg bruiser).

On the morning of Friday August 10th last year, Lloyd went out his cat flap as he usually does and got up to whatever cats get up to when they are out and about. 2 hours later he was meowing at the front door and came in limping. I was worried about what fight he’d gotten into this time but it wasn’t something that was unusual, sometimes he comes in limping after a scrap and walks it off, sometimes it’s a trip to the vets. It didn’t seem to be bothering him so to save him the trauma of another trip to the vets we thought we’d see how he got on over the weekend, a decision I will never ever stop regretting!!

By Sunday he wouldn’t walk on the leg at all, so first thing Monday I booked him in and took him to see the vet. He was examined and as he didn’t seem to have pain when checking his leg the vet thought it might be a muscle injury and slight infection as there was small ‘puncture’ wounds under his arm. So she gave him some anti inflammatory and sent him home. A few days later and still no improvement, so back to the vets and she thought it was still just the muscle healing so gave him more pain meds. Another weekend passed and still no improvement so he went back for X-Rays and it was then that they discovered he had ‘dislocated his elbow’ or in the medical term had a radial head luxation.

No idea how he did it, one theory is he fell from something and held on with one leg and that caused the bone to pop out. He might have done it fighting. He might even have been hit by a car. We’ll never know.

He was referred to a place called North Downs Specialist Referrals. A hospital for small animals that’s supposedly specialise in orthopaedics. I took him there the following day, and was told that they would reposition the bone with a screw and he’d have to be on cage rest for 6 weeks. At this point I was devastated, little did I know what was to come!!

Long story short, the screw was positioned, he came home, rested in his cage for 6 weeks. When we went back they discovered the screw had in fact broken causing the bone to fracture, so they went in to remove the screw and put a new one in. The next day I picked him up from the hospital and he wouldn’t place his foot, it just kept bending backwards. I asked someone to look at it but nobody was available, so I took him home but wasn’t happy so I called and called until they agreed to see him again the following day. Turned out the new screw has caused his leg to break…

I was told by the ‘surgeon’ that the bone would heal on its own, something that I have since found out would have been impossible. At the time it seemed unlikely to me given the screw broke in the first place and it’s impossible to keep a cat still. The surgeon  agreed to put a metal plate in to support the bone but in doing this he dislodged the screw leaving the radial head once again out of position

Again, I was told by this ‘educated professional’ that it would ‘be fine’. Surprise surprise it wasn’t, and after a total of 12 weeks on cage rest my poor baby still was unable to walk on the leg.

I took him to see another orthopaedic specialist who said it’s possible that he will learn to walk on it and the bone will wear away enough for him to cope with it. But the most likely outcome would be amputation…

Amputation… the thing this other ‘surgeon’ assured me would be the last last last last last thing that would happen. And that it wouldn’t come to it.

We’d spent soooooo much money on all the other 3 surgeries so decided to leave it a month for when his insurance renewed and to see if he would learn to walk on it.

The original ‘surgeon’ wanted to try athrodesis which is fusion of the joint but I was told by 2 other surgeons that this would likely cause further issues with weakening the rest of the arm.

Lloyd has since had further troubles with going to the toilet caused by the stress of his ordeal and so it got to the point where enough was enough. On Friday we booked him in for the amputation on Tuesday, today. The day I hoped would never come.

I found and read Fangs Story – https://cldavis.tripawds.com/fangs-story/ on this website on Friday and it made me feel a million times better about it all. But last night and this morning I just broke. I feel so guilty taking his leg. Last night I just held it in my hand and looked at it for ages just trying to get my head around the fact that it was going to chopped off an destroyed, part of him. It’s my responsibility to look after him and I feel like a complete failure.

It’s now 11.50am and they said to call after 2pm to get an update, so just over 2 hours to go…

ill post again when I’ve spoken to them. 🙁