Now on to Dexter...
On January 19th, I woke up before Ryan did, and was trying to decide what I should do...go back to bed, or get up and put some clothes away or clean up the house. I opted for the first choice, and crawled back in bed. Dexter jumped up on the bed and wanted to play. Ryan woke up at this point, and as Dexter was playing, he swatted at Ryan's stomach. I gave him a little nudge to get him off the bed (keep in mind that we have a water bed frame but have a regular mattress in said frame, instead of the waterbed mattress) and his back "passenger side" leg got caught between the bed mattress and bed frame. He couldn't get himself out, so Ryan grabbed him to try to help him out, and he didn't like that at all, because he twisted and finally got out. He was trying to walk on his leg and kept meowing and lifting his leg. When he sat down, he'd be very careful with his leg, so we knew something was wrong. I called the vet and told them what happened and they agreed to see him, though they were pretty backed up.
We got into the vets office after not that long of a wait, and she looked at him and didn't figure that anything was broken, because she could move his leg around and he didn't wince or anything. She said that they would want to do some x-rays anyway, just to make sure. We went to Ryan's brothers place while they did this and they called us to let us know that Dexter broke his femur and would likely need surgery. I think they just opened up their "money we owe" file and needed some extra cash, so they decided that a broken femur sounded expensive enough. They put him in a "cast", and I'll use the term loosely, because it was a coat hanger wrapped in padding, and then "gift wrapped" with blue tape (see picture below). She said that the vet who does the surgeries wasn't in but that she would get him to look at the x-rays and determine whether or not he would need surgery, but she figured it was likely. We paid for the coat hanger cast and the other things they did to him ($363), and were on our way.
Monday came along and Ryan had stayed home with Dexter because he had to be in a cage and off his leg all together, and we couldn't leave him in there with no food or water or litter (the carrier we had wasn't big enough for all of those things). The vet called and said that Dexter would have to have surgery, so Ryan's mom picked up Ryan and Dexter and took them to the vet. He was there overnight. It was strange to not have the cat in the house with us for the night. Tuesday Ryan and I both went to work, and I left at about 10:00 to go and pick up Dexter. Poor guy. He is such a fluffy cat, and to do the surgery they had to shave his whole leg up to his hip, but they left him a "slipper" on his foot. He looked like half a cat. But he seemed to be doing good. He got 12 stitches, and no longer had the blue club to wear. They told us that he had to be in a kennel for 3 - 4 weeks, confined to strict rest. We ended up borrowing a dog kennel that Laura got for Christmas (She was in Edmonton at the time, and Geoff just offered it up to us - They don't have a dog yet) and that is working out well. He's recovering well; we leave him in there all day while we're at work (with his litter and food and water), and then we let him out for a bit when we're at home, and he decides that he's fine, and jumps OVER a large picture that we have blocking the basement stairs and runs downstairs. I hope that once he gets his stitches out they're going to say that he's recovering well and that we don't have to keep him in the kennel any more. We've given him a taste of freedom and he doesn't like going back into the kennel once he's out...
