Amputee

This is a story of a kitty cat amputee.

On Saturday night, Kenji and I decided to move our bed from the room we had been using as our bedroom into the larger room in the upstairs of our house. The larger room was our bedroom at first when we moved in last year, but then we found that the smaller room had a better breeze to keep us cool on hot summer nights. But Kenji's folks very kindly sent us a nice portable air conditioner, which we decided it install in the larger room. (Thanks Mom and Dad!)

Anyway, as we were rearranging and moving furniture, I stepped out of the room and shut the door behind me. What I didn't realize was that little Spammy was right underfoot, and when I shut the door, the tip of his tail got caught! I'm not even sure he knew his tail got caught - he didn't say a word. About five minutes later, I discovered the tip of his tail laying in the floor next to the door. :(

So we went and found Spammy and took a look at his tail - sure enough about an inch of his tail insides were sticking out the end. :(

We took Spammy to the emergency pet clinic right away (it was midnight already), and they said that because the tip of his tail had been "degloved", they would have to amputate about an inch and a half off the end so that his skin can grow back over the bone and avoid getting infected. So we had to leave him overnight and pick him up on Sunday.

Yesterday, after I got out of work, Kenji and brought little Spammy home. We made the mistake of letting him out of his box without isolating him in a room by himself first. As soon as he saw Musubi, he attacked her, screaming and yelling, and flying up the stairs after her. The bandage on his tail flew right off, and the naked little shaved and sutured end of his tail was exposed. I was finally able to capture him and calm him down. We tried to put the bandage back on, but Spammy wasn't having any part of it. So Kenji called the clinic, and they said to bring Spammy back and they would rebandage him.

I took Spammy back to the doctor by myself. Meanwhile, Kenji cleared all the stuff out of our smallest room so Spammy could live in there overnight and not climb on somthing and hurt himself. When I brought Spammy home, he was a lot more calm, but he was still very upset about having a club-like bandage on his tail, and even more angry about having a big clumsy cone stuck around his neck. He was still groggy from the sleepy drugs they gave him at the clinic, but as the effects of those subsided, Spammy's personality returned to his normal sweet self. He began to purr and roll around and ask to play with his stick.

Spammy's allowed to go out of his room now, but little Musubi is still traumatized by his attack yesterday, and wants nothing to do with him. Fortunately, she is not an aggressive kitty - she just doesn't approach him; and when he approaches her, she just hisses, growls, gets puff-tail, and backs away. This picture was taken about a month ago, when Spammy discovered that he really loves watermelon. I didn't want anyone to have to remember a sad Spammy with all his bandages and his cone-collar, so I thought I'd share this happy picture of him too. :)

So if you have pets, be extra careful to make sure they are not underfoot when you don't expect it. And get pet insurance! We were thinking of dropping the insurance we got for Spammy and Musubi, but now I'm glad we didn't. Between the emergency room visit, the surgery, the medications, and the follow up visits, this little incident would cost probably around $1,500! With the insurance, we should be covered for at least $1,000 of it, so neeless to say, we are very very glad we have it!