rescue     .     rehabilitate     .     rehome

Cadbury's story is quite the story.

I took a cat named Emma in from my vets office where I work, from a gentleman who had brought her in to get spayed. We quickly discovered that Emma was far too pregnant to spay. The gentleman was super nice and took in a bunch of outside cats from his yard to try and help them out, but in Emma's case, it was a little too late and she became pregnant before he could intervene. He was a little in over his head, and I offered to take Emma in, and allow her to give birth and have her babies in a safe, quiet space. A few short weeks later, and Emma gave birth to four beautiful babies.

Cadbury was one of those babies. After the birth, everything seemed okay and Emma was grooming her babies and everyone looked to be nursing well. No problems were evident. However, one important job that mom cats have after giving birth, is to chew and lick the umbilical cord to detach it from the other kittens and herself. On day two, I realized that a few of the kittens hadn't moved around as much from one another, and I went in to take a better look. It turns out that three babies were stuck together, each by a foot by the umbilical cord! One kitten's foot came untangled with ease, and the foot looked to be completely fine, and there was adequate blood flow to that foot, and I knew it would be fine. The other two on the other hand, were not fine. The umbilical cord wrapped so tightly around one foot of each kitten, that they needed emergency partial hind limb amputations. One of those kittens was Cadbury, the other was one of his sisters, Peep. 

Surgery on a 48 hour old kitten is unheard of. There are so no safe anesthetics to be used at that size. After consulting with a close veterinary orthopedic friend and picking his brain, I had the decision to make, whether to euthanize the two babies, or two try and have my bosses perform partial hind limb amputations, with the realization that they may still not make it. I opted to give them the best chance possible, and that afternoon, my bosses collectively performed partial hind limb amputations of both kittens. The next 72 hours were crucial. If they made it mast the 72 hour mark after the surgery, then their chances of survival were great!

After a terrifying 72 hours, they were both in the clear and doing well! I was made aware, that if the incision sites of the partial amputations was not healing well, then a full leg amputation would be necessary when they were a bit older and able to handle full anesthesia. So we crossed out fingers that the incisions healed well!

Peep's incision healed beautifully, and she was adopted along with her sister by the absolute sweetest family ever! They were made fully aware of the possibility that she may need a full leg amputation in the future, and as of one year later, she is doing fantastic with her partial amputation! I'm so happy for her!

As for Cadbury, his healing journey was a bit more challenging. His incision wasn't staying closed, and over the course of a few weeks, we re-stitched the incision two or three times. At a few months old, I decided to go ahead and go the full hind leg amputation for Cadbury. I wanted him to be healed and on the road to recovery so that he could have this put behind him, and find his forever home! He did fantastic with his full amputation surgery, and we discovered that it was a great thing we went for it, because during surgery, we saw that the rest of that leg actually healed twisted, from the umbilical cord entanglement. So it would never have healed properly. 

Soon after his final surgery, he found his forever home with a sweet couple. He gained a dog brother, and is doing fantastic! I'm so happy for him, and I love update photos watching his thrive!

Congrats little man!