femoral head ostectomy

so my 1 year old cat broke his leg and had to have a Femoral Head Ostectomy, or FHO.

here's some info on FHO, which is the surgery that trotsky has to have because my other cat, tribble, broke trotsky's leg. i have had words with tribble. i don't know if he understood them. but he seems pretty sad.

tribble (11 months old) ambushed trotsky (1.5 years old) from a behind a chair with coats hanging on it... a perfect cover. this is a game they often play but for some reason this time it went afoul.

when tribble landed on his head, trotsky understandably freaked out and kind of jumped sideways in a startled way, landed badly, and in so doing, broke his hip. it seems amazing, but it's true. he started yowling really loudly and i knew it had to be bad, so i called a car service (i live in nyc and have no car) and had the car take us to the emergency vet... at 3:30 am.

apparently young cats can have growth plates in the tops of their femurs (and presumably other places) which are not completely formed yet, and perhaps never will be, making them very fragile and easy to break. most cats who get this type of injury are 1-2 years old. and this is what trotsky had.

his leg was broken just below the head of the femur, where the femur (top leg bone) articulates into that groove in the pelvic bone. the surgery basically involves surgically removing the head of the femur and then sewing the muscles back into place over the joint; the cat is then said to have such a strong muscular structure that they heal and make a false joint in that hip. so, trotsky is now one hip cat.

that was my boyfriend's joke, not mine.

i came home from the vet scared and not knowing what to do. i've had cats my whole life and i've never heard of this! but i googled femoral head ostectomy and found this blog post, where a wonderful person named jason posted a story about his cat having to have FHO. it was very comforting, as were the numerous comments people had posted, telling their stories of the exact same thing that had happened to their cats.

hopefully one day someone will come across this post, and be helped like i did! don't worry, it's a pretty common thing and cats have an excellent recovery rate from this surgery. feel comforted. it will be ok.

and what post about cats would be complete without pictures? and so...

here's trotsky after tribble has taken his food.
what a wuss.


and here's tribble (such an innocent kitten)


trotsky is now home and recovering nicely despite his baldness


i have asked bastet for quick and painless healing for her fellow sacred feline.

trotsky is actually doing pretty well. 3 days post-op and he is hobbling around the house, jumping up on low sofas and chairs; he has 3 other legs after all, as the vet pointed out to me.

the first day or so he was pretty fatigued with pain, and didn't move very much from the little blanket-nest i made for him, but he seems a lot better now and closer to his normal self. they didn't even send him home with any pain medication, because they said he would not need it; cats apparently tolerate pain very well and pain meds make them not want to eat, which is obviously a bad thing right after surgery. so, he seems a little uncomfortable, but he's getting better quickly. thank the goddess!

update (august 2008): 2 weeks later and trotsky was walking around fine without hardly any pain, within a month he was completely pain free. he is still a little bit nervous around tribble (which i think is understandable) but he is back to his normal, sweet, running-around cat-ness.

here's a picture of him now. seems like he's really suffering, doesn't it? ;)