Care received during inpatient hospitalisation (cat)

[Casey76]

Other than for sterilisation I've never had a cat require hospitalisation, so was just wondering if this was normal:

On Friday evening one of my mainly-outdoor cats came home after being gone for two nights. For him this was on the boundary of being "not normal." As he started to climb the stairs to go up to my room, I saw that both of his back legs were very dirty, and when I picked him up, one of his legs was obviously broken.

I phoned my vet (this was at midnight) who said to keep him quiet, in a cage and bring him in first thing in the morning, which I did. When I got to the vet I explained how I found him, and once the vet had a look he said the break was a few days old, the lower limb was severely infected, and i had two choices 1), have his leg amputated or 2) pts

Seeing as, to get into the house, Feisty had to climb over a low wall, jump up 1m to get to the garage window, negotiate a 3m descent in the garage and climb a full flight of stairs to get to the living area, I said that he deserves the best chance I can give him; so he was scheduled for surgery.

I picked him up today, about 48 hours post-surgery, and he is doing fine. He's eating and drinking, can walk around on three legs and is majorly unimpressed at being in a cage.

However, his un-injured back leg is still crusty with dirt and dried blood - is this normal, would the vet not have cleaned him down while he was sedated/anaesthetsied? Obviously I can't get his incision wet, so trying to clean him up is going to be really difficult.

Also, I've been given no antibiotics or pain relief for him, which I would have thought would be needed. I can double check with the vet tomorrow, but we have a slight language barrier, in that my French isn't so fluent I can argue, or press for more information easily :/

WARNING - slightly gruesome pics ahead

 

[HashRouge]

Oh bless him, he's lovely!

As far as I can remember from when my cat was hit by a car a few years ago, he returned from hospital nice and clean, with painkillers and/ or antibiotics. I can't remember which! But he definitely had tablets that we put in his food. He broke his leg in three places and had an operation to set the bone and install a metal plate. So not an amputation but a similar injury. I wouldn't be especially happy at the state of that back leg if I were you! Surely it wouldn't have been hard for them to clean it while he was asleep?

 

[HappyHollyDays]

My little silver tabby had 4 teeth taken out last week and had a 2 week long acting antibiotic injection so she didn't have to have anything after she came home. Your vet might have done the same thing.

Hope your boy recovers quickly.

 

[cava14una]

My little silver tabby had 4 teeth taken out last week and had a 2 week long acting antibiotic injection so she didn't have to have anything after she came home. Your vet might have done the same thing.

Hope your boy recovers quickly.

I was just going to say that

 

[Doris68]

Pas bon! - Can't you find someone who can give your vet a verbal bashing in French! That's really not acceptable and the vet needs to be told. I hope your lovely cat makes a full recovery.

 

[ILuvCowparsely]

Even though I am bilingual my spelling is rusty and have not a french keyboard

remembering the spelling and what I want to say:>Pauvre petite chat, jenvoie beaucoup de bisou et bon chance pour il retourne come normale bientot

Then with the spell check


pauvre petit chat j'envoie un bon nombre de baisers et bonne chance et espoir qu'il retourne à la normale bientôt

The vet should have cleaned him up in case further injury bellow that lot.

 

[Peregrine Falcon]

Poor puddy tat. Hope he recovers from his ordeal quickly. Yes, I would have expected him to be cleaned up too.

 

[SusieT]

have you a better vet near you or is this the only option? As that's not very good.. But it may be your only option? If it was so badly infected he needed the leg amputated then yes he should have had antibiotics but if he's doing ok he may continue to do fine!

 

[pines of rome]

When my cat had his hind leg amputated, he was given pain killers for about a week until he had his stitches out. I would be asking your vet about this and I think they should have cleaned him up too!

 

[Shady]

being that i am in France too and have experienced the same level of care many times i am not in the least bit surprised, i call it half a job France, it's like they can never do something 100% , i picked up one of my cats covered in pee and poo, i do agree that i'm sure he will have been given long acting medication, i have found here that vets vary enormously so might be worth seeing if you have other options, some of the very rural vets operate with very low staffing and are always up against the clock and run off their feet.
he's a beautiful cat , i'm sure he will be running around in no time. xx

 

[Nicnac]

Not normal for UK but normal in many other countries where they don't have an army of vet nurses so vets tend to do the job but not the esthetics. I would phone the vet to find out exactly what meds were given as no, it's not normal for animal to be discharged without anything after such an op. It does look as if vet has done a good job with the surgery and your cat looks well overall.