Animals – Rocky rises again

Rocky the cat used up several of his nine lives last month. While playing by the road, he was hit by a car and went missing for six nights. Eventually he managed to drag himself home to some very relieved owners, who brought him to us immediately.

On exam, he couldn’t stand, had lost a heap of weight and had scrapes all down his back legs. After filling him up with pain killers, we x-rayed Rocky, and found that not only had he dislocated the hip in his left leg, but he had also fractured the tibia and fibula in his right. How he got home at all is a miracle!

Rocky’s owners were prepared to do everything they could to save his legs, so the next day we performed surgery on him. Firstly, we operated on his hip to put in the femoral head back in the joint and then anchored the femur in place with a very strong suture.

Next, we had the tricky job of putting his tibia back together. Unfortunately, the bone was in such a mess we couldn’t reconstruct it easily. We had to put a metal rod in the centre of the bone to hold everything in alignment, then put a steel plate and screws down the side of the bone to stop the segments rotating.

In eight weeks when the bone has healed, we will remove the metal rod in case it irritates him when he is out hunting.

Rocky was such a tough cookie that he was even walking on both legs the day after surgery. Despite these hugely painful injuries, he was the friendliest and cuddliest cat during his stay in our freshly refurbished cattery.

And despite such a traumatic experience, Rocky’s owners tell us he is eyeing up the windows daily in anticipation of getting the all clear and being allowed to go exploring again.