Gideon

Gideon broke his back left paw jumping off a perch on 12/27/21 (my birthday, ironically). We still don’t know why it happened, apparently it was just the wrong move/twist/landing. After a quick video vet visit to confirm we needed to be seen in person and it wasn’t just a sprain, we called EVERY emergency vet within 2 hours of us. Only 1 could see us within 12 hours. So off we went to new vet who took x rays and confirmed a fracture at his knee (X-rays at end of post).

We talked through the options: someone could do a repair involving pins, wires, and 8 weeks of recovery, or we could amputate with 2-4 week recovery time. Their ortho vet wasn’t comfortable doing the repair so we’d need to find a new one- again the wait times right now are CRAZY. I called vets saying I needed to repair a fracture, they said 2 weeks for initial appointment and then another 4 until surgery. To be clear, I’m not upset with the vets- they’re doing their absolute best and I don’t blame them for wait times. The situation was just so upsetting; imagine waiting 6+ weeks with a broken leg!! He’d still have the leg now if we went that route and I can’t imagine the pain. Also knowing we’d need to keep him still those 6+ weeks as to not injure it further… it just didn’t seem possible. So amputation was scheduled a week after injury (still a longer wait than I’d like but I’m grateful we got in at all).

Surgery came and went wonderfully! They did a mid-femoral amputation so he still has a teeny stump. I hear this isn’t super common, but he didn’t stay overnight and we took him home later that day (maybe d/t the location of the amp at mid femur instead of removing the whole thing?). The vet said the fracture had worsened, he had internal bruising, and she found a bone shard somewhere in his leg. Obviously despite our efforts to keep him still, apparently he’d walked on it and further injured it since the break 🙁

I’m writing this day 5 post-op and we’ve had ups and downs (including getting around the cone and ripping out 2 staples!!), but as I write he’s napping and looks happy. Not at all how I thought I’d be spending my new year, but here we are! Idk that anyone will read this but enjoy my crazy venting post I guess??

The knee break- the head of his tibia was somehow of separated from the rest of the bone? Hard to describe but it’s clearly a bad break, even I could tell.

Normal X-ray for comparison

He had a fibula fracture as well. The vet said if it was just this he’d heal perfectly and just have a cast for a while.