Thursday evening I was standing in the garden having a cigarette (yes I am an evil smoker – but only in the garden, never the house) when our cat, Buttons, came ambling up the garden. I called him and it was immediately apparent that all was not well. He didn’t look up and come running over. He just carried on plodding, and it looked as though he could hardly put one foot in front of the other. In fact he got as far as the doorstep and collapsed.
Poor Buttons, I have never seen a cat look so bad. His mouth was hanging open and was full of blood. His gums were grey. His eyes were half-closed and the pupils as large as I have ever seen – this in beaming sunlight. His chest gurgled as he breathed. I got a towel to wrap him in and gave him a quick check over. It looked as if he had a broken jaw and sounded like possibly broken ribs with a punctured lung. He had also soiled himself and stank to high heaven, which didn’t help. I have never seen an animal look that way and survive. I thought he would be dead within the hour, from shock at least, and who knows what injuries.
Of course the vets had closed just 5 minutes before. I called the emergency number – no reply. I left a message on the mobile answerphone, figuring they were out on another urgent call. I got no response and tried calling other emergency vets, but they are all on contract and wouldn’t help. I thought my cat needed to be put to sleep and no-one would help!
By bed-time Buttons did seem a little better. He had made his way upstairs (slowly, in several short steps with long rests between). His gums were a little more pink but his breathing was terrible. I went to bed fully expecting to find a dead cat in the morning. I didn’t sleep terribly well, of course, and was up at 6.30.
Buttons was alive! Still looking and sounding terrible, but essentially alive. This meant taking him to the vet as soon as they opened. As his insurance had lapsed, we might still be faced with a difficult decision. I called the vet as soon as they opened and they asked me to bring him straight in. They are about a quarter of a mile down the road, so that didn’t take long at all, and we were shown straight in.
I told the vet what had happened. “That’s odd,” she said, “I was on duty last night and neither phone rang once.” Well, anyway, she examined Buttons, whose jaw had apparently gone back into position – it’s possible it was just the struggle for breath that made it look broken! No broken bones anywhere. A broken tooth, a nasty cut all the way across his tongue (only superficial, but sore) and decreased breath sounds on the right side. He would need an x-ray to see if he had ruptured his diaphragm.
Having to ask about cost was awful, but she said it would be about £150. If it was bruising then he would be fine in a few days. A ruptured diaphragm, well possibly a different story but there was no way of knowing without an x-ray. £150 to find out is not really too high a price to pay to stop your cat suffering. And at least we had the money at the minute.
Waiting for news is always horrible. Everyone was a little snappy. Finally, at 1.30, the phone rang. Buttons had contusions on his left lung (bruising, basically), and a small pneumothorax on the right. This is air in the space between the lung and the ribs, and stops the lung from inflating fully. He would be fine in a few days.
Having already been lucky to survive one car accident, Buttons has now had a second nasty RTA with only bruises to show for it! Now that is the power of 9 lives in action. He’s home now and doing well. I have put in the forms for the insurance so that next time we don’t even have to think about it.
And there will be a next time!
