**Warning: Graphic pictures of a cat surgery.**
Every vet has times in his/her life where he/she face ethical dilemmas. It just comes with the job. If you care about animals and want to make their lives better, there are times, as a vet, you will be put into a position that sucks. Well, Friday was one of those days for me. A stray cat, who I later named Darryl, was dropped off at my clinic for euthanasia due to his severely injured left front paw/carpus. And it sure did look terrible. But, he was really friendly and young and not in a life-threatening situation at that exact moment. Since I was considering rescuing him, one of the deciding factors for me was whether or not he had FIV or FELV. Those are both kitty retroviruses that stay in the body forever, once contracted. So, I went ahead and tested him. Luckily, he was negative for both. They are most prevalent in young, unneutered male cats, so he was lucky to test negative. It also meant I can get him an indoor home with other cats and foster him in my own home until we find him somewhere to live.
But, first, I needed to fix his horrible wound and neuter him. Actually, first, I needed permission from the person who dropped him off and she gladly gave it to me. She's a caring cat person, but he was just a stray and she didn't know what else to do.
Since I was trying to treat him cheaply, I didn't do an x-ray of his left carpus, but I felt sure it was broken by the way he held it. He couldn't walk on it at all and there was a severe crushing or bite wound of some kind to his left front paw. The best solution, as opposed to weeks of antibiotic therapy that may or may not fix the infection plus/minus orthopedic surgery on his carpus (wrist) that I don't know how to do, is to amputate. It's easy, completely rids the cat of the injury, and still allows him to have a healthy, long life. So, that's what I did over my lunch break.
As always, I'm very grateful that I have a boss that let me use our clinic to do all this at only the cost of the materials. Not all vet hospital owners would be so amenable to that idea. Here are some pictures of Darryl's ordeal.
-Shirin
PS A word as to the origin of Darryl's name. My tech Susan helped me come up with the name from a character from The Walking Dead. He is a redneck hunter that is an excellent survivalist and zombie killer. Hence, meet
Darryl.
Look at that sweet face. He was meowing and rubbing all over me. I just couldn't euthanize him.
He couldn't walk on his hurt leg at all.
I could see lots of muscle and tendons exposed. The dark pink tissue is actually healing granulation tissue, but the wound smelled terrible and there may have been infection deeper down to the bone.
We got an IV into his good leg and gave him some IV drugs: antibiotics, pain medicine, and fluids.
Even before his anesthesia, he was so docile and sweet.
First things first: NEUTER!!
Neutering a cat is a simple and quick procedure, unlike an amputation.
Happy to be helping this baby.
Arm prepped and ready for surgery. We initially wrap the front half of the leg with bandage material to contain the infection (NOT something you want near a surgical incision). Then, I wrapped the leg in sterile drape material so I could manipulate it without breaking sterility.
I did a midhumeral incision (a little above the elbow) since it's easier than disarticulating the whole humerus from the scapula.
It's got to be all the way around and even, so I constantly had to move the leg forward and backward to assess the incision.
Now it was time to dissect away the subcutaneous fat and get to individual muscle bellies to start transecting them to get to the big vessels I need to tie off.
The only really nerve-wracking part of this surgery is isolating the huge blood vessels to tie off before you accidentally cut through them. Luckily, I've realized after several amputations that it's pretty easy to find them as long as you're careful.
Dissecting around nerves and vessels to tie off. I actually injected numbing drugs into the nerves before cutting them to decrease post-op pain.
Almost to the bone.
Ready to get the bone saw and finish this thing.
Check out all my hemostats clamped on various vessels to ensure hemostasis (no bleeding).
Starting to saw through the humerus.
Working hard.
Tired...phew!
Success! No more infected, broken leg.
Now I just had to suture up all the muscles over the bone to create a nice, comfortable stump.
The hardest part of this surgery was his extremely tough tomcat skin. Several of my needles actually bent trying to get through the skin. I ended up using a 22 gauge needle and threading the suture through it.
Almost done and I made it before my afternoon appointments started.
In recovery.
His incision before we ice-packed it.
No more bad leg!
Awake and happy to be eating several hours post-op.
That boy was HUNGRY! He couldn't stop eating.
Holding my sweet little patient. He spent the weekend at my office, but I'll see him again tomorrow. Can't wait to see how he's doing. He was already using his litterbox and digging around with his one front paw like a champ.
