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previous ~ ~ ~ next So, aside from my (by now standard) lengthy absence, I've had good reason. Because I'm lazy (and most of you, except my true-blue, loyal fans and friends, have given up on me) I'm going to paste in the e-mail I sent to a friend telling her what was going on. (Oh, and in case you don't remember, Gwynnie is one of my two kittens.) Gwynnie has a fracture on the hip-end of her femur (right side). :( :( :( :( It's actually at the point of what the vet was calling a growth plate, which is basically a bunch of cartilage on the end of the femur to make the hip joint work properly. We have NO idea how this happened. She was fine when we left for church and limping heavily when we got home with her hip skewed at a weird angle. I called the vet figuring I'd have to take her to an emergency vet, but it turns out (I LOVE MY VET'S OFFICE!!!) that they're actually open on Saturdays AND Sundays. So we got to see someone right away without the expense of it being deemed emergency. So that was good. They did a quick exam and then x-rayed her and found the fracture. :( Poor thing! The options are try to let it heal on its own (which = 6 - 7 months of pain for Gwynnie and very poor likelihood of full recovery, and higher possibility of arthritis) or surgery, which is going to cost $1000. Ouch. We're obviously going to do the surgery. The good news is that because Gwynnie's so young, she should do great in the surgery and bounce back quickly afterward. They're going to remove the cartilage and a portion of the bone below it to keep the hip bone from rubbing the femur. The vet assures me she'll still be able to walk, run, and jump without problems after the initial compensation time when her body adjusts to the changes. It also means that, since there will be no joint (Gak! That sounds so horrible!!) there is no possibility of arthritis. All according to the vet, who is not our usual vet, but someone else in the office. So I'm going to talk to Dr. Reed, who is the guy my kittens adore and with whom I'm terribly impressed and see what he has to say. Not to be rude, but the guy looking at my kittens was very young. (As in he inadvertently left the door to the examination room open when he went out the back and I could overhear him having a conversation with someone, presumably a significant other, about how "you always take things the wrong way!" and then talking about going over to his mom's house. However, in spite of this, he was very professional in the examination room and did seem to know what he was doing.) Regardless of his apparent competence, I just want to hear it verified from the vet I trust, you know? It seems like a big step, removing her joint! I want to make sure that doing that is necessary before we go through with it. I absolutely won't leave her to try and heal it on her own for 6 - 7 months! But maybe there's another alternative... The really bad thing about it, though, is that since she'll probably be having surgery this coming week, the vet couldn't give me any pain killers for her because the options are aspirin-like drugs (which, as you know, thin the blood) or heavy-duty opiods which they don't want to resort to unless she's in horrible pain. This makes me wince every time I look at her because, even though she's sleeping and looks comfortable, OWWW! Coping with a broken anything without pain medication??? I'm getting ready to Google the names he gave me to see what I can find out, but he said it's called a "slipped capital physis", a "femoral head fracture", or, officially, a "Salter-Harris type 1 fracture of the proximal femoral physis". Do you know anything about it? How many days until finals? 31 That doesn't seem so bad just yet... until I realize that's about 4 weeks! What was one good thing that happened today? I HAVE THE DAY OFF! AND MONDAY!! Miscellaney: The unfortunate thing about the good thing is I will be spending all my holiday weekend buried in textbooks. Tell me what you think. Tessa :: Tessa's Site �::Tessa's Comment(s)�:: Also, the surgery that was done was a "femoral head ostectomy". That happened on the 9th because they couldn't squeeze us in sooner (according to the technician, although I now have my doubts...) [2005-02-18 13:35:58] Solemne :: Solemne's Site �::Solemne's Comment(s)�:: Hi Tessa! That's horrible that your kitten got hurt, but good that they were able to perform surgery! I would be soo sad if my kittens got hurt. I'll be around. Trying to update more. http://contraryangel.greatestjournal.com [2005-03-13 20:51:15] Something funny ~ ~ ~ Whoops... Most recent: The REAL surprise party - Monday, Jul. 11, 2005 Still not here - Wednesday, Jul. 06, 2005 Moved - Thursday, Jun. 30, 2005 I survived - Thursday, Jun. 23, 2005 Go see her. Now. - Thursday, Jun. 02, 2005 |
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