So far so good. My biggest problem has been keeping Leila resting. She is back in the cage, which she handles really well. She spent 4 months on cage rest with her pins in her leg, then for the last couple of weeks – since the vet told me that she would almost certainly lose the leg – I have let her out as if she weren’t injured. I could tell she was very happy about that. Now the pins are out, but there are still four holes left where the pins were, so the leg is quite fragile. Also we have no doors and a Milo, the combination of which would give her very little chance of rest. She jumps up onto our barstool chairs when she has had enough of his playing.
Leila is clearly very happy to have the pins out and the big external fix gone.
She came out for a cuddle this morning. Her favourite thing is still to sleep on my lap. Milo joined us this morning. This is how I know she is ok. Milo keeps his distance when she is in pain or sick. He is my monitoring device! They were happily washing each other this morning before falling asleep. That’s normal for them.
There are hardly any marks on her, just the holes from the pins. There are no stitches because the holes should heal by themselves. You can see the bone has not healed smoothly and that will not improve, however, when the fur grows back and her muscle begins to build again, she won’t look so bad. The vet said she should wear the collar of shame again (We like to call it her ‘Martini glass’ costume) but she had other ideas. After four months of wearing it she has become an expert at taking it off. She rolls on her back and uses her back feet to pull it over her head. I’ve tried making it as tight as I dare, but she just takes it off anyway. She is not bothering with the wounds, so after trying a few times, I’ve decided to leave the collar off. I’m at home most of the day to keep an eye on her anyway.
The only negative experience is that the vet told me, as I was leaving with Leila, that she probably already has arthritis in the elbow from where the joint was partly fused in the first surgery, and that she will likely be in chronic pain. That is not the outcome I was aiming for. I will have to monitor that and see how she is. If it is causing her problems in the future then maybe amputation will be on the cards again. I would hate for her to be suffering unnecessarily. This is where having a Milo will be useful. He can tell how she is feeling, I have to watch his reaction to her.
“Having a Milo’ is a phrase we use a lot in my home. It probably sounds strange to those who have not met him. We use the phrase often when we look at nice things: “That’s really nice, but we can’t have it, we have a Milo.” We mean that we have a 5 year-old kitten who doesn’t show any sign of acting like an adult, and will probably (usually) destroy any nice thing we have. I think he is one of the nicest things we could have though so I don’t mind not having other things.
I will post some updates about physio with Leila as we progress. Jerry suggested it might help others to have some details so I will do that.