Okay. I get it. You want to know how my kitten, Sherlock, is doing after I stepped on him.
At first we thought he was getting better. He’d limp less and less as the days went on, and eventually it got to the point where he was walking normally again, showing no signs of any injury. A few days after that we noticed that Sherlock was spending most of his time sitting on his butt and licking the previously injured leg. We just figured that he had missed it as a fully functioning body part and he wanted to show his leg how much he loved it. So he licked it, and licked it, and licked it.
We went to sleep that night and the next morning Sherlock bounded onto our bed, as he is wont to do, and started fighting with our feet beneath the covers. We groggily laughed at his hijinks before I realized that his leg looked funny. I whistled for him to come over to me, and when he turned to trot towards me I saw that his right leg, the previously injured one, was completely hairless and covered in brownish-green spots. I gently grabbed his leg and pushed on the spot and it was kind of tender, so I figured it wasn’t good.
ACWF and I tried to figure out who would take him to the vet. ACWF was teaching all day, and I had a seriously important meeting in the early afternoon that I needed to prep for. I figured his leg wouldn’t get any worse in a few hours, so I said that I’d knock off early and take Sherlock to the vet to get his now spotted and hairless leg checked out.
I got home from work at about 2:45pm and was surprised to not hear Sherlock and his jingle-bell collar running toward the door. He’s just like a puppy. He always greets us when we come home. This was strange behavior for him. I found him a few minutes later in his litter-box with a swollen and almost fully-green right leg. I scooped him up quickly and didn’t even bother to get the carrier, lock the front door, or obey the laws regulating the speed of automobiles.
The vet took one look at Sherlock’s leg and said, “Gangrene.” They rushed him into surgery and had him resting and sedated in about 5 hours. I the meantime I had called ACWF and asked her to meet me at the animal hospital where I had taken him. The vet explained to us that Sherlock had gangrene compounded with an horrible infestation of maggots inside his leg. That’s what had made it so swollen. I thought I was going to throw up.
We went to the recovery room in the back of the hospital to check Sherlock out and to see how he was doing and we were both shocked at what we saw. Apparently the vet had neglected to inform us that he had to amputate Sherlock’s leg because the gangrene and maggots were so bad. Our poor, little cat now had a bandaged stump where his right leg used to be.
It took him a while to get accustomed to that, but now he runs around on all three legs at top speed, and we were talking about getting him fitted for a tiny peg-leg in time for Halloween. He’s going to be our little pirate kitten! Though we might have to give him a more piratical name.
I’m still pretty upset that I’m the one who caused him all this trouble, and all this pain, but he seems to be fine now. The vet just said we have to check him daily to be sure none of the gangrene spread to any other part of him body or else there might be more surgery in his near future.
I’m just kidding. He’s totally fine.
