Miss.K
Dagobah Resident
I have a choice to make on whether or not I should let my cat have an operation of her leg. That I would appreciate some help in making.
She was a street kitten until she was about 2 months, and was captured by shelter people. During those first months she had gotten her left front leg broken/crushed, at what would be the wrist for a human, and it had grown together wrong, so that she's walking on the back/side of the paw, and had a wound from walking on asphalt straight on the bone. (the wound healed fast once she was taken care of)
I had to wait until she's fully grown, which she is now, to see if the leg could be operated. And so now I have to make the choice.
She has no feeling in the paw, but has feeling in the leg above the wrist. As the pow turns inwards from the way the wrist has grown together, she uses it to catch toys (would use it for hooking a mouse if she was outside) while standing on the good leg, and the only times it seems to cause her pain is if she jumps really high and land on the tile floor on the bone.
What they can do is break the wrist again, and put it straight with a lot of metal strings through the leg/wrist to hold it together. She would get a straight leg, with a stiff wrist, and I imagine that it would be a help for her when walking/running and it wouldn't hurt to jump high and land on a tile floor, BUT as the leg would be straight but with stiff wrist, she wouldn't be able to use it to hook a mouse, though she might be able to stand on it and use the good paw instead.
There is a risk that she would eat her paw, as it has no feeling, so when making a wound by operating it could cause her to start licking/biting it. But this could be solved with one of those plastic things they put on the head to prevent licking the body (she would hate that)
The most difficult as I see it is that she would have to be in a cage for 3 months after the operation, as jumping on the paw before it's fully healed would break it and all would be for nothing.
I know her well enough to know that she would be very unhappy in a cage, -a one room apartment is already too small for her, and she's bored often, and when she is bored she cries.
So here is where my doubts about my motives comes in. It would be almost unbearable for me to have her crying, and not be able to give her what she wants for 3 months (3 months is forever when the baby is crying)
I am aware that she fulfills for me to have something in my life that is soft and kind and loving, and my need of mothering someone, and right now would be a terrible time for me to add stress and have to be mean to my baby (I can't explain to her that it is in her best interest to live in a cage for 3 months, so to her I will seem mean)
But if it is really in her best interest to get the operation, I am willing to go through 3 months of suffering for it, but I am unsure if it really gets that much better having a straight leg, that it is worth the trouble and the emotional discomfort it will cause us both to go through with it.
I think I need help to determine, as I know I really don't want to go through the emotional pain, so I can't be sure of what is the right thing to do...
She was a street kitten until she was about 2 months, and was captured by shelter people. During those first months she had gotten her left front leg broken/crushed, at what would be the wrist for a human, and it had grown together wrong, so that she's walking on the back/side of the paw, and had a wound from walking on asphalt straight on the bone. (the wound healed fast once she was taken care of)
I had to wait until she's fully grown, which she is now, to see if the leg could be operated. And so now I have to make the choice.
She has no feeling in the paw, but has feeling in the leg above the wrist. As the pow turns inwards from the way the wrist has grown together, she uses it to catch toys (would use it for hooking a mouse if she was outside) while standing on the good leg, and the only times it seems to cause her pain is if she jumps really high and land on the tile floor on the bone.
What they can do is break the wrist again, and put it straight with a lot of metal strings through the leg/wrist to hold it together. She would get a straight leg, with a stiff wrist, and I imagine that it would be a help for her when walking/running and it wouldn't hurt to jump high and land on a tile floor, BUT as the leg would be straight but with stiff wrist, she wouldn't be able to use it to hook a mouse, though she might be able to stand on it and use the good paw instead.
There is a risk that she would eat her paw, as it has no feeling, so when making a wound by operating it could cause her to start licking/biting it. But this could be solved with one of those plastic things they put on the head to prevent licking the body (she would hate that)
The most difficult as I see it is that she would have to be in a cage for 3 months after the operation, as jumping on the paw before it's fully healed would break it and all would be for nothing.
I know her well enough to know that she would be very unhappy in a cage, -a one room apartment is already too small for her, and she's bored often, and when she is bored she cries.
So here is where my doubts about my motives comes in. It would be almost unbearable for me to have her crying, and not be able to give her what she wants for 3 months (3 months is forever when the baby is crying)
I am aware that she fulfills for me to have something in my life that is soft and kind and loving, and my need of mothering someone, and right now would be a terrible time for me to add stress and have to be mean to my baby (I can't explain to her that it is in her best interest to live in a cage for 3 months, so to her I will seem mean)
But if it is really in her best interest to get the operation, I am willing to go through 3 months of suffering for it, but I am unsure if it really gets that much better having a straight leg, that it is worth the trouble and the emotional discomfort it will cause us both to go through with it.
I think I need help to determine, as I know I really don't want to go through the emotional pain, so I can't be sure of what is the right thing to do...
