My Furry Baby

On Tuesday DK and I went to the airport and when we got back an hour later Fuzzy was limping pretty badly. We were worried, but figured that she just pulled a muscle or something and that we would give it a day or so and see if she got better.

On Wednesday morning when I left for work she was sleeping in my closet in her normal spot. I called the vet and they agreed with our opinion that we should give it a day and see how it goes. When I got home from work that day she was still in the same spot. I wanted to see how she was walking but since she didn't look like she was going to go anywhere I had to come up with a plan.

There is one thing that Fuzzy loves more than anything in the world and that is a treat. We give our cats wet food as a treat every Sunday because they only get dry food normally. Usually Fuzzy gets so excited about treats that when she hears the clank of their treat bowls she comes running and stands on her hind legs and waits for me to serve it up. Sometimes I feel bad because I am putting away the dishes and she hears the clank noise and comes running. I give her most of the sauce and a small amount of chunks and Chloe gets less sauce and more chunks. They both seem to like it that way. So in an effort to get Fuzzy moving I grabbed their bowls, clanked them loudly, made a big spectacle of opening the can and kept calling Fuzzy and telling her that it was treat time.

No response from the closet. I walk into the bedroom with her bowl and showed it to her. She meowed and just laid her head back down. I set the bowl down in the hall and called her again. She limped out slowly and stopped about 3 feet from the bowl and made a few jerky movements towards it but didn't move forward at all. That's when my OH SHIT alarm went off. Fuzzy not taking her treat with extra sauce!

I called the vet again and told them that I wanted to bring her in right now because I know something is seriously wrong with her. They said that someone had just brought there cat in that got hit by a car and they would not be able to see Fuzzy that night. They could take her, but the vet wouldn't be able to see her until the morning. I decided it would be better to keep her at home than make her sleep at the vet because even though they are really nice people she HATES them because every time she goes in there she gets a shot or blood drawn on a thermometer up her butt! I made an appointment for her for 8:30 AM. I figured I would check on her again in an hour or two and then DK and I could decide if she should go to the emergency vet.

A couple of hours passed and she seemed to be doing ok, maybe even a little bit better so we decided to take her to her regular vet in the AM. When we got there this morning she was being a very bad kitty. She was squirming all around when he was trying to check out her leg, between the two of us, one professionally trained at holding cats down and me, who is just used to my crazy cat, we could not hold down a 12 pound cat. The vet said that he would need to sedate her and take the x-rays and keep her for most of the day today.

He called about an hour ago with the news. Fuzzy tore (badly) the ligament in her knee. She gets to have surgery next week and we of course get to pay for it. (I would pay anything for my cats.) It will be a 3 month recovery. I feel so bad for her. Poor baby.

UPDATE: It will be a 2 - 3 month recovery. When the vet told me that I just thought: OK, that's how long it will take until she is up to full speed again. WRONG!!!! That means that she has to LIVE in a CRATE for 2 - 3 months. That is worse than the surgery!

So even if she has torn you open in the past and I know there are a lot of you, think good thoughts for her because her leg really hurts and she must be really scared. It is almost more than I can take to bring her to the vet once a year, so three times in one month is terrible.