Lucky's Story...

Lucky posing for the camera. Leg healed, waiting for hair to grow back on left front leg.

One day in late September, this beautiful stray cat climbed into the engine of my boyfriend's Jeep.  Needless to say, you can guess that she got caught in the fan-belt.  Her left front leg was broken above the elbow, other than that, tests showed her to be a perfectly healthy 7 month old.  Aaron and I (oh, my name is Sarah) couldn't bear to put her down.  She was just so amazingly sweet for a stray- she loved us, but hissed at everyone else at the vet's office. The first vet we went to wanted over $600 to perform surgery on her leg and put a pin in it.  Being college students, that was a bit more than we could afford.  We called Aaron's mother and she contacted her vet- Dr. Buckman.  Dr. Buckman agreed to do the surgery for a price that could fit our budget.  We rushed to pick up our lovely stray and named her "Lucky-Cat." So, Dr. Buckman operated on her leg, put a pin in it, and she came home with us.  She was wearing a huge "airplane wing" splint and adjusted extremely well.  She potty trained quickly (I had to hold her up in the litter box for the first few days while she did her business because of the splint) and was healing wonderfully.  She had one episode where she got stuck under the couch and frantically tried to get free- that time, she punctured her arm with her back claw.  At least, I believed then that she had gotten stuck, now, I think differently (read on)...

Lucky's first day home after her surgery, wearing her "airplane wing." Sleepy & sweet, posing with Aaron.

Then the time came to have the splint taken off (she still had sutures in, though).  Dr. Buckman wrapped her leg and everything was fine again.  Lucky ended up pulling the wrap off and the vet said just to watch and make sure she wasn't using the leg and didn't pull out her sutures.  The next night, she was curled up in my lap getting loved on when she screamed and jumped down and ran to the bathroom (her recovery room).  I assumed at the time that she had a muscle spasm, because she ran like she was being chased by demons.  We got her calmed down and went to bed ourselves. Now comes the horrible part:  She woke us up at 5 am screaming and having a "fit."  We got her calmed down, but she was bleeding from her sutures.  She had also either licked or pulled out her hair on the back of that leg.  The vet's didn't open until 7:30, so we settled down to watch her and calm her.  About an hour later, she had another "fit" and we saw first hand what was happening- she was attacking her own leg.  She screamed, bit, and clawed herself (she actually pulled off some of her claws and bit herself deeply many many times on that leg). Lucky went straight to the vet's.  Dr. Buckman kept her for a week at the clinic.  She was kept sedated for the first four days so that she wouldn't attack herself again.  During this time, I frantically searched the web and came across www.handicappedpets.com   The wonderful people on their message board calmed ME down and suggested that the pin in her leg could be hitting a nerve (ouch).  I told Dr. Buckman, he exrayed Lucky, and everything seemed to be in a position not to cause pain.  On day 5 of her hospital stay, she was taken off meds and watched.  She did not attack herself again and her wounds had healed, so she came home with us.  No sutures and no cast this time. Everyone in Dr. Buckman's office fell in love with her, including Dr. Buckman.  They had never seen such a loving stray cat (Lucky didn't bite or fight them like most cats do lol). We loved her immensely and she was spoiled rotten.  Some of our friends would even come over just to see her!  This was the time I made all of the toys (thanks to some ideas from the gals at Glitter www.getcrafty.com).  Read on to find out "the rest of the story"...