Mud Pie and his leg incident

[catcrazylady]

I know I've been gone forever and here is one of the reasons that I have needed you guys so much!

About 3 weeks ago I came home to find Mud Pie limping on his back leg. I felt and examined it but could find no visible injury. Assuming he had just sprained it I didn't worry. I came home the next night to find him totally down and his foot was swollen HUGE! The next day was spay/neuter clinic day at the shelter and I knew the shelter vet would be there so I brought Mud Pie in for her to check. She couldn't find an injury either and said I needed to massage it to reduce the swelling. She squeezed around on it some and he screamed in pain. Late that night it busted open. I then assumed it was an abscess. I wasn't really happy with how things were going and he seemed really sick so I took him to my vet the next day. When we got there he was burning up with fever and had a bad infection. The doc squeezed out all the goo and put him on five days of injections as well as oral meds. We all thought it was a nasty abscess.
After all the meds he seemed to be a lot better but I could not get the leg to heal up. I thought it was because he was constantly licking at it and keeping it open. It would scab over and he would pick it off. He still had a slight limp. One night I was looking it over and I could see under the scab what looked like a piece of bone sticking out of his leg. Well that freaked me out and the next day I took him to the shelter to get neutered and asked her to look at his leg again while he was asleep.
This is where things get weird!
She picked the scab off so she could see inside and out came a big piece of bone stuck on the scab!!!! :eek: She freaked out and so did I! She said she had never seen such a thing and had no idea what I should do. Not encouraging words from a vet!
Now this just happened Wednesday and I intend to take him to my vet one day this week. The strange thing is that now that the bone fragment is out his leg is completely healed.

This is a picture of his leg with the open abscess. If you have a week stomach you may not want to look at this.


http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid202/p6c38692fd58ac58b41e1ed9a3fd76658/efb15584.jpg

See the two bones that are exposed? I don't know which one was broken and came out.

These are a couple of pictures of the piece of bone.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid202/pc7f453c84139580e11ff64280339f879/efb14fae.jpg

Size comparison
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid202/p5ebfc2bcbb7f26d6b19a9a4be34e1011/efb1538c.jpg

His leg today.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid202/p549d1aa1ad3e4418087c565f927511c1/efb15081.jpg

It's hard to tell in the last picture but it looks like his little toe is kind of drawing up and getting shorter. According to the shelter vet both ends of the bone in his leg should calcify so don't worry but I'm not happy with that answer! He has two jagged ends of bone still in his leg with nothing in the middle! That just doesn't seem right to me! :eek: Thats a good size piece of bone for a cats foot. I will be taking him to my vet one day this week.

Have any of you ever heard of anything like this? Any thoughts?
Why can't my cats do anything normal???? :rolleyes:

[Laura's Babies]

:eek: That is SHOCKING! HOW in the world did he break that bone enough for it to just be there free floating around in his leg!!!!! (I am sure that is something you will never know.) I don't blame you for taking him to another vet, I would want to do everything I could to make sure those sharp bones don't cause him problems in the future, jumping and leaping... that has to HURT! Poor baby, that had to have really hurt and make him sick with infection... Ewwww! Poor baby!

[jazzcat]

Holy smoke Lisa! I've never seen or heard of anything like that. EWWW!

Poor Mud Pie. I hope your vet can shed some light on what might be going on this week. I sure hope it doesn't cause him any more problems.

Now I have the heebee jeebees.

[Catty1]

Aw, no, poor Mud Pie!

If there is some bone missing - might there be a surgical way to put a substitute bone in, or something that would calcify over and give support?

POOR baby! At least there is some healing and he is in less pain - I hope!

HUGS to you and Mud Pie!

Catty1

[Corinna]

Never hard of this either. I would find an orth vet and find some anwsers.

[krazyaboutkatz]

Lisa, I've never seen or heard of this either. Poor Mudpie:(. I hope that your vet will be able to help him and that he'll heal up quickly and feel better soon. Please take care and continue to keep us updated about him.

[Lizzie]

I'm very glad you are taking Mud Pie to your own vet this week because I don't like the way his toe is drawing up either. They may need to re-open the leg and have a good look inside. Cats have so many small bones in this area of the leg (according to the emergency vet who looked at a limping Ginger, my 20 year old, last week), it makes the issue very complicated. In Ginger's case, they didn't take x-rays because the combination of small bones and arthritis would have made finding the problem impossible, they said. Luckily, her's was just a sprain. I should think your vet will x-ray. Can you even be sure that this piece of bone came from the two bones that were exposed. Could it have worked its way down from another bone? It is a good sized piece and quite thick. I hope you kept it to show your vet. It must be a relief to you to see that the leg is healed and he's no longer in pain. Good luck and I will be looking for your post-vet update.

[critters]

Poor boy!! It sure wasn't a broken fang that came out, either. Does he go out? Could he have been bitten by something big enough to break the bone? Is a trap a possibility? It sure looks LOTS better now, and he'll probably adapt to life without that bone. Kitties are adaptable to almost anything.

[jenluckenbach]

:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

OMG! Totally unbelievable. I have never heard of anything like that. YIKES!

In one way I am glad that it looks so good now (from the outside) but I would never stop wondering what is going on inside. Can't wait for an update.

ummmmmm......maybe I don't want Mud Pie any more! Gets in too much trouble. :rolleyes: (hee hee)

[catnapper]

Wow! :eek:

That piece looks awful!

As for the bone healing together, do not worry - remember my foster Angel? The vet PURPOSEFULLY removed a bone segment about that size for the two ends of the bone could grow together and create on longer bone (ok, actually, they cut her bone in two and pushed one segment up high and let them grow together, but it WAS about the same distance poor Mud Pie's bone has to grow.)

[catmandu]

The Found Cats are shocked that Mud Pie has been having so many problems with his leg.
And we hope and pray that Mud Pie will be better very soon,and that the White Coats can help that Poor Little Cat.

[Felix]

Oh my goodness :eek: I have never heard/saw such a thing.Poor guy must have been in alot of pain :( ,im glad things are better for him,It looks Great now!

[sirrahbed]

:eek: :eek: Poor Mudpie!!! That picture is shocking and gave my stomach a tumble - will be glad to here what your vet says. :eek: :eek:

[Don Juan's mom]

Poor baby! I'll ask St. Francis to say a special prayer for him.

Liz

[rg_girlca]

WHOA!!! That was some leg injury. I've never heard or seen anything like it. Poor dear sweet beautiful Mud Pie. How he must have been in so much pain. I'm glad that it is finally healed up and I pray that there will be no complications and that it will calcify.

Please keep us updated on this Lisa.

Prayers for Mud Pie and ((((((HUGS)))))) for you.

[Maya & Inka's mommy]

Is it possible he got run over by a car or so??

[Donnaj4962]

Do we have an uppiedate on Mudpie???? How is he doing? What has the vet said?

I have never seen or heard of such a thing. And that picture looked just painful! Poor little one.

Prayers that he is well soon!

[RedHedd]

Any news?

[rg_girlca]

Enquiry minds would like to know how sweet Mud Pie is doing and what the vet had to say, please.

[momcat]

How awful :( Poor little Mud Pie! It's times like this we really wish our kitties could talk and tell us exactly what happened. The pictures of his leg injury look pretty nasty. The pain must have been right off the chart for Mud Pie! What does your vet say? Any thoughts on how this might have happened? My prayers continue for Mud Pie's recovery and hopefully some answers.

[catcrazylady]

UPDATE:

Sorry I was so late getting back with an update. I had trouble getting in touch with my vet. Well, everyone seems to agree that he has to feel much better now that the piece of bone is out of his leg. It will just need to be watched in the future for any possible arthritis to develop but it should be alright.

I feel incredibly guilty for the pain that little guy went through. I can't imagine how bad that break must have hurt and here I was just treating him for a nasty abscess. I think in the future I will request an xray just to be on the safe side. Of course, I hope and pray that there will never be another incident like this in the future!!! :eek:

He has completely healed and is now finally back to playing and having fun like he should be. The fear of pain seems to be all gone now and he's enjoying being young once again. Thank Goodness. His whole personality change had me concerned but now I know it was horrific pain for him everytime he moved his leg. Bless his heart. :(

[krazyaboutkatz]

Lisa, I'm so glad to hear that Mudpie is now back to normal again.:) Hopefully he won't have any more problems with his leg. Please give him a kiss for me.:)

[catfamily]

I'm so happy he's feeling better.And glad he's got a great catmom to keep an eye on it in case that area is week or if he has sharp pain you'll here him make a noise when he jumps down off something.xray is a good idea whenever it's possible.He's a lucky guy to be one of your cats :D

[Sara luvs her Tinky]

:eek: WOW ... Poor little Mudpie! I'm glad he is feeling better.. poor kitty.

It is amazing to me how it happened.. at least the bone came out by itself without you and your vet having to guess how to get his little foot better!

[Donnaj4962]

Oh Thank you for the update! I am glad that Mudpie is feeling better.

[Beauty17]

Please don't berate yourself for not asking for an x-ray. That's what vets are for, aren't they - to make those recommendations if they seem warranted. I know that we all have to be on the alert for our own health care and that of our animals - that is just the way things work - but if you miss something, in the course of earnestly doing your best in treating your loved one, you have certainly done your best. You should be congratulating yourself for giving care to your hurt one, and caring for him to the point where he is healed and happy again, and not berating yourself for not doing better.

I know how it is, though. My Sadie went through some ordeals that I blamed myself for. Once she was hit by a car (we think) and went to hide in the garage. We didn't find her until the next morning. It was very cold, and she was a white cat - and by that time her pink nose and paws were blue. She had a punctured lung. She survived and recovered completely, but I felt terrible, even though we had put up a search for her the night before. Then when we went to have her spayed, the vet spayed her without letting me know until afterward that she had been pregnant - with a litter of six. I didn't know. I was young then, and ignorant - I should have had her spayed earlier, but I didn't realize she could get pregnant in her first year. She lost a lot of blood and had a hard time - and then, of course, I felt terrible about the poor kittens. I would never have chosen to have done things that way if I had known. And the vet seemed very critical of me, as if I had tried to pull one over on him. But again, Sadie got better and fully recovered. She went through other ordeals - these I felt less responsible for, but looking back, I was responsible, in the sense that if she had been an indoor cat, as all mine are now, she would not have had these troubles. When she was only 2 1/2 years old, she got an abscessed paw and I took her to a new vet to have it surgically cleaned. He seemed to have a very insouciant manner, but I left her with him, never thinking that there would be problems - and later they called me to tell me that she had had a massive allergic reaction to the anaesthetic and hadn't made it. She had been under so many times before, I never imagined that could happen. My heart was broken. For years, I used to dream she had come back.

But anyway - I do know how it is to blame oneself for the injuries of one's animals - or children. Don't blame yourself. You have done every good thing for your Mud Pie. You have shown your love in every way, and now the whole thing is history and well in his past.