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Submitted by punkydamit last July 9th 2009, 11:07 AM

About: Grady   Category: Cat Stories

I work at a local humane society. A guy brought in a 4 month old kitten who he found in his apartment buildings hallway, after hearing a cat screaming and loud noises from his neighbors apartment. When he found her he noticed that she couldn't stand up, so he brought her to the humane society. It was obvious that at least one of her legs was broken, and she had bruising all over her body. Our first thought was to euthanize her, but she was so sweet and still purring! that our shelter manager found a local vet to evaluate her and see how badly injured she was.
X-rays showed that her left front leg was snapped in half and dislocated from her shoulder, a few ribs were fractured, and her left hip joint was shattered. She needed extensive surgery to repair all of the damage.
Luckily the vet clinic offered to do her complicated surgery for half of what they would normally charge. So she had a metal pin placed into her front leg, had the upper part of her femur bone amputated from the shattered hip joint, and was spayed. All at the same time.
So her recovery was going to be lengthy, with daily physical therapy to make sure she kept full range of motion in her damaged legs. Also, she had to be kept on cage rest. Yeah, a 4 month old kitten in a tiny cage for 8 weeks.
So I offered to foster her, and we started the twice daily torture of physical therapy. Her hip socket was especially important, since the scar tissue could have grown in and prevented the leg from moving much at all. There were so many bone fragments and scar tissue in the area that you could actually hear crunching noises when I moved the leg in the joint. Gross.
But she recovered amazingly fast, and within a month I let her out of the cage. Now she barely walks with a limp, and only once in a while do I wonder if she has brain damage:)