Chicken Little

On Tuesday a client brought in a stray cat with an injured back leg. She'd been gimping around for a week but they couldn't catch her until that day. She was too wild to look at without anesthesia, so we dumped her from her carrier into the "tank" - a modified glass aquarium that we run gas into until the subject passes out.

This little 5 pound cat had severely injured her left hind leg. No broken bones, but all the skin had been long ago stripped off her entire ankle. All the bones of her tarsus (ankle) were exposed, surrounded by a few stringy tendons. Her foot was a contracted, shriveled, dead monkey paw. Like Tales from the Crypt. Like a chicken wing in the fryer too long. Leave that chicken wing on the bottom of your garbage can for about 5 days, and that's what it smelled like, too.

I told the new "owners" she needed an amputation, and discussed our concerns about her quality of life as a 3-legged stray cat. But, they were willing to keep her and pay for the procedure, so I gave her an antibiotic shot, and we cleaned up the leg as much as possible.

Today I spayed her first, and it was obvious she'd already had at least one set of kittens this year. Then I removed her leg, disarticulating it at the hip joint. Although it was only infected below the knee, there really is no point in sparing part of the limb, since she won't be walking on a prosthesis, and a "peg leg" is more prone to injury and self trauma. The surgery went well, even though it was a bit gristly. I gave her a local nerve block, an NSAID, and morphine to try to dull the pain.

After she recovered, she ate well, and even let my nurse pet her. There's hope for her yet. Her owners picked her up, pleased. My nurse nicknamed her "Chicken Little", for her scaredy-cat attitude and her gross, exposed, shriveled leg (now mercifully gone).