In just one month since my last post, a lot has happened in our lives. The title of this post does not refer to the weather, but to some difficult circumstances we've encountered in the past month. We would appreciate your prayers as we navigate these storms and ask for God's strength and wisdom to get through them. Thank you!
Literally the evening of my last blog post, Maddi had a terrible accident.
We left all our pets inside the house while we attended our Tuesday night Bible Study and were gone for about 2 hours. Before we even opened the utility room/garage door to enter the house, we could hear Maddi meowing and it wasn't a normal sound.
When we opened the door, the dogs were freaking out, and Maddi was hanging by one leg from the front loading washing machine door. She had somehow gotten her right back leg wedged into the crevice of the door hinge. We think maybe she tried to jump up onto the washer and didn't quite make it. (And we usually leave the washer door cracked or fully open so it doesn't mildew...never in a million years did it occur to us that this could pose a threat.) This picture shows my finger oriented how her leg was caught, but I could not get my finger as deep down as her leg was, just to give you an idea of how stuck she was.
The scene was awful and very traumatic for us. Maddi was frantically crying in pain, had relieved herself, and there was some blood and scratch marks on the wall. Michael rushed to her and held her body up to relieve the weight of her hanging. But Maddi (like all cats in a frantic situation) bit his hand multiple times. Praise the Lord He put the thought in my mind to tell him to grab her by the scruff of her neck (which tends to immobilize cats).
This gave us a chance to take a breath and figure out what to do. I put the dogs in the backyard and then tried to look closer at the door and her leg. It was wedged down deep, and the way to door is designed, there's no way to make that space open wider by either opening or closing the door -- that space remains relatively the same width. So then I got a screwdriver to try to remove the door, but also by the way it's designed, you cannot access the screws unless you open the door past 90-degrees. But this would have required us to pull the entire washing machine towards us, while holding Maddi up, and then crush her leg more to open the door past 90 degrees -- not an option!
At some point during this chaos, I frantically called my parents who live about 10 minutes away. I don't think I said anything coherent, just bits and pieces of panicked yelling "Maddi...leg...stuck....help" I'm amazed my mom understood anything I said, but she said she'd be right over.
Also while we were frantically trying to figure out what to do, I decided to dose her with liquid pain medicine I had leftover from Fred, just to help take the edge off.
We were struggling with what to do for about 15-20 minutes. We were both so panicked. Thoughts kept running through my mind that I wanted to call someone to rescue us. I thought about calling the police, but realized that no police would rush to aid an animal when they have people to save. We couldn't remove the door. We couldn't take the washing machine with us to have someone else help. It finally just hit me that no one was coming to rescue us, we would just have to figure out how to get her leg free.
The most important thing to do was to get that leg free. So I grit my teeth, told Michael to hold her tight, I put my fingers underneath her leg, and just forced it straight upward and out of the crevice. It was awful (I could feel clearly that her leg was broken badly)...but it worked. Her leg was free, praise God!
We quickly placed her in a cat kennel and started driving to the emergency room at the vet school. Michael called my parents and told them we had just left. (I'm so thankful that my mom - who is as much of an animal lover as me - did not have to witness her still stuck in the door.) I drove like a maniac and literally honked and flashed my lights at people to move out of our way. I put our emergency flashers on and speed like crazy, running at least 5 lights. I'm shocked no police cars were in the vicinity, but I would not have stopped until we reached the vet school -- another praise to God.
We rushed her inside and handed her over to the wonderful staff at the vet school.
And then I broke down.
Literally a basket case. The weight of that scene overcame me and I just needed to release all those intense feelings. They said they see it happen all the time. ;)
My parents were there as well and were a huge support to us. I'm so glad to live close to family!
At the vet school emergency room, they stabilize the situation and then give you a recommendation. That night, they told us that her leg was badly broken and likely involved the ankle bone, which would be difficult to fix and would likely require amputation. But they would show her case to the orthopedic vets first thing the next morning and let them make their recommendations.
So we went home that night with heavy hearts and prepared ourselves to raise a three-legged kitten. We even watched YouTube videos of three-legged cats to comfort us that they could still have a happy life. Michael selflessly offered to clean the utility room so we would not have to be reminded of the accident. He even re-painted the scratch marks on the wall that night, and you really cannot tell unless I point it out. He did a wonderful job, and I was so thankful for him doing that (while I had a large alcoholic beverage to take the edge off.) And his brilliant solution for the washer door: wedge a rolled up towel in the crevice so the door can still remain open to avoid mildew, but nothing can get stuck in the crevice anymore.
We then stayed up as late as we could watching The Big Bang Theory to try to avoid sleep. Even when we eventually went to bed, we could not sleep well because the images of the night kept coming to mind. It was seriously the most traumatic event either one of us had ever experienced. I have so much respect for people who deal with scenes like that on a regular basis (doctors, vets, emergency responders, military, etc.)
The next morning God bestowed yet another blessing on us -- the orthopedic vet, Dr. C. called us and said that she looked at Maddi's case and thought she was an excellent candidate to have her leg repaired through surgery instead of having to amputate. Her leg was broken in two places: the tibia and fibula, but it did not involve the ankle bone. Because she was a kitten and it was a relatively clean break, Dr. C. thought her chances were really good. She even petitioned the board to partially match the cost of the surgery. Her care has been above and beyond the norm.
So Maddi had surgery on Wednesday, September 10th. They put in a metal plate and several screws. Here is a picture we took of her after her surgery.
She came home with us on Friday, September 12th. She is a tough, tough girl. We have to keep her confined to a dog kennel to prevent her from running or jumping. On October 22nd, we'll take her in for another set of x-rays to check how well the bones are healing. Dr. C. may relax the activity restrictions after that point, but it could be longer.
Overall, Maddi is doing well. We have to leave her cones on because otherwise she will bite at and irritate the incision site. This means we have to feed and water her twice a day since she can't eat or drink with the cones on. She is NOT happy about having to be confined to a kennel, but she's just going to have to trust us that we're doing what is best for her in the long run. We're hopeful that she'll make a full recovery and regain full use of her leg. She already walks with equal weight on her legs. We're just so thankful she was able to keep her leg!
We call her our little Daisy Flower because of the cones:
