Many of you who follow this blog and those of you who know me personally know that I am an aspiring crazy cat lady. Various furry babies have spent their lives with me and currently I have two Maine Coon/Siberian crosses- King Ragnar Lothbrok and his younger brother Athelstan, affectionately known as the Kitty Kray twins.
Just over eight weeks ago, I came scarily close to losing Ragnar. I thought about writing about it when it happened, but the timing felt off so I decided to wait.
Friday 15th August started out like any other Friday around here. I’d fed my furry babies when I got up, unlocked the cat flap and let them out to play for the day without a second thought.
Shortly after 10am, my doorbell rang. It was a neighbour to tell me that her teenage son had “clipped” a cat on the hill that leads up to where I live and that she thought it was one of mine.
It was. It was Ragnar.
She drove me the half mile down to where her son and husband were standing guard over my terrified injured boy. Taking her at her word that the car had just clipped him, I initially assumed that his injuries were the facial ones that I could see. His mouth was bleeding and one eye was closing.
Ragnar’s not the biggest fan of strangers and he hates being in the car so when I was offered a lift home with him, having weighed up the risks, I politely declined saying that as long as he would let me pick him up that I would carry him home and take him to the vet.
Had I realised at that point how badly injured he actually was, I wouldn’t have lifted him and carried him any distance in my arms but adrenaline, fear, shock, anxiety were all playing their part and clouding my judgement.
My brave boy let me carry him – all 6.5kg of him – slowly and steadily up the hill. He was making horrible rasping growling noises. As I walked, I spoke softly to him, reassuring myself as much as him.
When I was almost at the top, another neighbour stopped in a car and offered to help. I explained what had happened, politely declined and kept walking.
By this point, as I held Ragnar in my arms, I had realised that something didn’t feel right with his back end, but I knew I had to get him home so slowly and steadily I kept going.
When I turned into our street, his patience ran out, and he launched a frenzied attack clawing and biting down into my arm multiple times. Despite my own pain, I knew had to keep going but about 30m from the house, I gave in and gently sat him on the pavement, realising that it was too dangerous for both of us to keep going.
My poor boy was still terrified and obviously in agony, but he was now also uber aggressive. My heart was pounding. I was almost as terrified as the cat, but I knew that somehow, I had to pick him up and get him home.
The neighbour who had stopped a few moments before was still in the car in her driveway. I waved over and shouted to her for help, asking her to go into my house and grab a towel from the kitchen.
While she did that, I quickly messaged Boy Child, who was at the gym, explaining that Ragnar had been in an accident and was badly hurt and needed to get to the vet.
Once I got a towel round Ragnar, I felt brave enough to risk picking him up again. Never have I willingly approached such an aggressive cat to lift it into my arms but in my heart, I knew I had no other option. I had to get him home to get him proper help.
We made it!
I carried him straight through to the conservatory, sat him on the couch and closed the door to stop his furry brother from going near him. With my boy in as safe place, I paused to do three things – I phoned the vet to say we’d be there shortly, I cleaned the blood off my arm to assess the extent of the damage( It wasn’t pretty but wasn’t as bad as I’d feared) and I fetched the cat carrier down from the loft. In the midst of all of this Boy Child phoned for more details of what had happened and to say he was on his way.
When I went back into the conservatory, Ragnar’s condition had visibly deteriorated. Carefully, I lifted him into the box and put the top back on. Boy Child arrived a couple of minutes later and we headed straight to the vet’s, leaving Athelstan staring after us.
We were at our local vet’s about 45 minutes after I had been notified of Ragnar’s accident. I honestly don’t think we could have got there much quicker.
The vet immediately whisked Ragnar away, leaving us in the waiting room. I was still bleeding and had to ask the receptionist if she had any antiseptic wipes. A few minutes later, we were called through into one of the consulting rooms where the vet broke the new to us that my beautiful boy was in a bad way… a very bad way. I’d already told them that he was insured but she asked me to double check how much he was insured for which is never a good sign.
They had stabilised him and taken some x-rays which had revealed that his pelvis was fractured in five places and that his lower jaw was broken. The extent of his injuries meant that he needed urgent specialist care. I said to the vet to do whatever she needed to do to save my boy.
She came back a short while alter to say that the usual specialist team that they referred cases to wasn’t accepting any critical care patients and couldn’t take him. Fearing the worst, I asked what that actually meant for Ragnar.
The vet was honest with us and explained that if she couldn’t find an alternative specialist then she would need to put him to sleep.
That almost broke me.
In the past two years we’ve lost three fur babies plus The Big Green Gummi Bear. There’s been far too much loss….
Boy Child and I waited largely in silence for what felt like an eternity.
I couldn’t lose my boy… I got Ragnar as a three-month-old kitten five days after The Big Green Gummi Bear passed away. A crazy time to bring a kitten into the house but Ragnar got me through many dark days, and I didn’t want to fail him when he needed me.
Eventually, the vet returned. She had found a specialist care facility who could take him if we could get him there by three o’clock. It was almost one o’clock and it would be a seventy-mile journey. Without hesitation I told her we’d take him wherever we needed to in order save his life.
A few minutes later, we were on our way. I sat in the back seat beside the cat carrier. My poor baby was spaced out on morphine, ketamine and Lord knows what else. Every now and then he would put his paw out through the grill at the front of the cat box as if to say, “Mummy, hold my hand, I’m scared.”
We reached the specialist vet’s around 2:45pm. Whew! We’d made it on time. Right from the off, we received world class care from the staff. A plan was agreed with the vet who admitted him to their ICU. It was agreed that they would fix his jaw fracture that day then monitor him in ICU over the weekend before operating on his smashed pelvis on the Monday. They assured us he would be kept pain free over the weekend and that I would be given regular updates.
Leaving him alone and broken with strangers was hard but I left reassured that he would get the best of care. He wasn’t out of the woods yet, but he was in the place that would give him the best chance of a good recovery.
It was a long weekend…
Monday was a long day. I spoke to vet who was going to operate first thing on Monday, and she explained the surgical plan for the day. She planned to put a screw in one side to pin the pelvis at that side to Ragnar’s sacrum. At the other side where the damage was worse, she proposed to plate and pin the top part of his pelvis but as the socket for his hip joint had been destroyed, she would also need to remove the head of his femur to allow the leg to sit in the correct position and give him the best chance of good use of it. The vet estimated that it would take her five hours in theatre.
My boy is a warrior. He sailed through the surgery, thanks largely to skill of the veterinary team. The vet did apologise that they had had to shave quite a lot of his fur off and that once we got over the shock of seeing him, we would find his temporary look funny.
We collected him three days later and brought him home to begin his long road to recovery. She wasn’t joking about Ragnar’s funky haircut! I was also amazed to discover he had striped skin!
He was to be on cage rest for at least eight weeks, when we would go back for his follow up appointment. Initially he came home with a feeding tube too as he wasn’t eating. I was shown how to tube feed him and care for the tube. It was removed by our local vet a week later- the first big step on his recovery journey.
Two weeks after that, he got the stitches removed- another big step forward. He’d lost over a kilo in weight since the accident and still wasn’t eating well so he was prescribed an appetite stimulant that I had to rub into his ear once a day for five days. It worked. We were back at the local vet for a weight check two weeks later and he’d put on 250g- another step forward.
Gradually as the days and weeks passed, Ragnar began to heal. He was allowed out of his “kitty jail” three or four times a day for ten minutes at a time under strict supervision- no jumping and no climbing. Day by day we saw him slowly return to something closer to his usual wee self. The sparkle returned to his eyes.
Last week we took him back for his follow up appointment. He was to be sedated again to allow the vet to remove the temporary wire that had been fixating his jaw fracture and also to take a fresh set of x-rays. The good news when we collected him a few hours later was that everything is healing well. He was duly discharged from their care on the caveat that he be kept on partial cage rest for a further four weeks to allow the healing to continue and we were shown how to do some basic physio with him to help with the muscle wastage on the weaker side.
The worst is now behind him and it’s great to see him out of “kitty jail” during the day and sitting in his favourite spot again.
This whole experience has been life changing for not only Ragnar but for his younger brother, Athelstan and to a less extent Boy Child and me. As a result of the extensive damage to the hip joint, Ragnas will need to be an indoor boy from now on. Since the day of the accident, his brother has been an indoor boy. I never want to go through another day like the day of the accident. Emotionally, I couldn’t cope with that again.
They are both young. Ragnar is just over two and his brother is eighteen months, so they’ll adjust to indoor living in time, I’m sure. The other local cats and wildlife will be breathing a sigh of relief.
The Big Green Gummi Bear was fond of saying “Actions have consequences” and that phrase has come to mind frequently over the past couple of months.
Yes, Ragnar is at fault as he ran out from the bushes into the road without doing his Green Cross Code and that has had life changing consequences for him.
Unlike dogs, cats have no legal rights so there are minimal consequences for any driver who is unfortunate enough to “clip” or hit a cat with their vehicle. That feels morally wrong to me.
So, if you’ve read this far, thank you for indulging me as I have gone on a bit. The moral of this story is that if your fur babies aren’t insured then you might want to reconsider this. Even if your fur babies are insured, you might want to double check the level of your cover. The vet bills for Ragnar’s care are in excess of £11 000. My pet insurance is a co-payment policy and that has covered 80% of the bill.
Ragnar will recover in time. He’s a warrior. He’s Viking!
Coral McCallum 