I feel so very fortunate to have found this community and also for the unbelievable recovery my cat is making. I thought my story might help new tripawd parent have hope for their older pets.

On Friday August 14th I came home late to find my oldest cat Moira in a box in the garage.  She couldn't get up. I brought her in and her right front leg was hanging weird and she wouldn't stand on it.  We rushed to the emergency vet and discovered that she'd broken her leg. I had already been crying so much waiting for the vet to see us, and now I had to decided what to do. Was this the end of her long life? Could she recover from this, or would I just be prolonging her pain? I mean she's 20. That's a long life already. But if she's still willing to keep on going, and there's nothing else wrong, well I gotta give her that chance.

   I decided that we needed to get x-rays to see if her bones are still ok or if they're too brittle. I also wanted to see if she had anything else going wrong that was going to end up killing her off.  So we waited for tests and some very good friends met me at the vet's office with water and excedrine and company to help me not fall apart.

So the results came back.  Moira leg had a bad spiral fracture in her otherwise healthy bone. Her kidneys are starting to fail but it's not killing her immediately and can be managed for a while with switching her to a special diet. The vet said that trying to splint the leg was not a good option for her as it probably won't heal.  I could be referred to a specialist if I wanted to try surgery to repair the break, but it would be a hard recovery and she may always be in pain. I decided that amputation would be the best option and hoped for the best.

She stayed in the hospital all saturday with pain meds and getting fluids.  By the evening her kidney numbers had improved and she went in for surgery.  I didn't really sleep that night waiting up to hear from the vet if she had made it through surgery or not.  But she did! The surgery went very well, and the doc was able to save her shoulder blade. 

I was able to bring her home sunday afternoon and set us up in the library.  I put the guest mattress on the floor pee pads and towels all around and spent the next couple of nights sleeping beside my little girl. Feeding her as often as she would eat and giving her pain meds when needed.

In the week since surgery she has done very well. She's starting to learn how to hop around, and was so determined she even used her old tall litter box rather than the little pan of litter I set out. 

She's got three younger sisters who I'm also having to look after and try to comfort. It's been interesting watching the other cats being so concerned and worried about their oldest sister. 

Luckily we have a screen door thing we built to help introduce new kittens into the family.  The cats can all look at each other but not bother each other too much.  So I set it up so the girls could all look in on their older sister as she recovers.

Next sunday Moira should get her stitches out and the dreaded cone can come off.  I know she'll feel much better after than and can really concentrate on learning how to move around on 3 paws. 

Having to decided what to do for an old injured cat is really hard. We lost Moira's brother about 4 years ago to cancer. But that was after getting an extra couple years with him. We decided to do surgery for him too, to remove a mass that had almost completely blocked his guts. He managed to recover, gain weight he'd lost back, and live till the cancer came back a couple years later. I know I did the right thing for him and although it was very hard, I knew when he started having trouble breathing that he was ready to go.  I felt that I needed to give Moira the same chance as her brother and just hope I'll be able to know when she's ready to go. Sure seems like she wants to stick around a while more right now.

So just because your pet may be ancient doesn't necessarily mean that life is over if they break a leg. 

-Suzanne, Moira and her three sisters