Someone asked me to post the article my mom wrote about me for Owned By A Sphynx Magazine, so here it is!
Meisje was raised a seasoned traveler: she took car rides as a kitten and when I picked her up, we travelled 1200 miles by car those first couple of days. On her first morning in the car, she sat down in my breakfast and ate scrambled eggs from between her toes. My heart melted-right along with the butter- which had become a gooey resting place for her tail. That is where the sweet-as-syrup part of this story ends. The rest of this article is about a horrible accident, the tremendous financial fallout, and what happens after.
As Meisje was settling into her new home and I chased her from one escapade to the next, I asked my breeder how she does it with more than one Sphynx?! She explained that she has emergency pet insurance, and that Meisje was covered up through the end of the month. Feeling that relief of not having all the responsibility on my shoulders, I decided to just switch her coverage over to my name and pick up the coverage for $12.00 per month. The insurance company offered me a two month free trial for transferring the coverage into my name, which made the decision even easier. I kind of forgot about it after a few months; Meisje grew and amassed a huge wardrobe and a website, Etsy shop- and a first birthday. We flew her back to the east coast to visit her sister and have their birthday party.
Meisje was playing with her sister and they ran upstairs into their play room. I was out shopping, but our friend reports she heard a thud, and Meisje came down the stairs limping. When I got home, our friend Jess showed me the tiny cut on Meisjes’ foot, and that it had some blood. I set Meisje down to assess the situation, and the tiny cut bled quite a bit. Since Jess seemed really concerned, I agreed to have the cut examined. I figured the vet would be able to set everyone at ease and we would all sleep better. The vet cleaned up this little cut about a centimeter long and razor thin, stapled it together and covered it with a bandage. He instructed us to see our vet when we got home to remove the staples and make sure it was healing properly. I scheduled a vet appointment with her regular vet and took her there on the way home from the airport so it would be all done and wrapped up and we could get on with settling back in.
Dr. Albertson was all smiles when he saw Meisje in her little pink bandage sitting on the examining table. We were all quiet as the bandage came off, hoping to see a nicely healed little cut. He cut the bandage away, and the cut looked fine! Then I noticed that Meisjes’ entire foot was lying flat on the examining table. I thought it was strange that the bandage was making her foot lay that way, and was waiting for her to shake and fix it, when Dr. Albertson started explaining: it was not all going to be alright. Meisje ruptured her Achilles tendon and was going to be unable to walk properly. She required surgery, and needed it immediately as we had already waited 5 days and the tendon was likely pulling further and further away. Chances of successful repair this far out were slim. He wanted us to know that even with surgery; she would likely only recover 80% of her former range of motion, at best. It was promising that she was young, but everything else was against us. I would like to state for the record that this could have happened in our own home just as easily. It was a freak accident and it can happen in an instant.
I stood there, holding onto the table while he explained our options: he firmly told us that if he was making the decision, he would take her to Kansas State University Veterinary Teaching Hospital, where the surgeon who wrote the textbooks on this procedure would perform the surgery, and give Meisje her largest chance at re-attachment. Payment was required up front: $2,500.00 initial estimate.
I was a Sphynx mom in crisis: I took a deep breath, remembered that we have insurance, and booked the surgery hours. We went home, changed into pajamas, and started the three hour drive to Manhattan KS with an injured Sphynx who had already been through two flights and a five hour layover. Back in the car, I called our breeder and left her a voicemail about the injury and diagnosis, then called Embrace Pet Insurance to notify them of the situation. I tonelessly explained the diagnosis and asked what forms I needed. The support person answering the phone said, “you worry about your pet, let me worry about the paperwork. What is the hospitals’ phone number; I will call them and fax everything you need so it is there when you arrive. “ I am not ashamed to say that I burst into tears when he said that.
We were all exhausted when we got to the hospital; the examination and explanation of the upcoming procedures were all a blur. They explained they were going to research and see if they could reattach and she would have a bandage for several weeks. If they weren’t able to re-attach, they would fasten each end to the bone and try for partial healing. I asked that they be really careful with her delicate skin, as her bandage of 5 days had caused welts. We left Meisje with the doctor on staff and went to put the bill on a credit card and sign the paperwork Embrace had faxed over. We numbly drove the three hours back home and went to bed without her.
Four days passed while we tried to act like nothing was wrong at work, waiting to hear updates, waiting to see how the scans went, waiting on the surgery results, waiting…waiting…and waiting. She came through the surgery: full re-attachment! That is all I heard, I didn’t hear anything else until they said we could come get her. Full re-attachment! We drove back up to get her, walked into the exam room to have our, ‘home care instructions’ read to us. She was in her carrier, which they had left in her crate for a familiar smell. I got the sheet of instructions, carefully listened to the dosage instructions, etc. the whole time watching for her face to peep through the carrier. The doctor asked if we wanted to see her before we took her home. Of course we wanted to see her!!!! I leaned over and eagerly opened the zipper and swung the door open. The doctor leaned in to stop me. I was a little offended! She reached in, and helped Meisje out.
I almost threw up on the table: this limping Edward Scissor hands, naked drugged mutation of my baby was pulled forcibly out of her carrier, her doped up eyes and myriad bloody scrapes were nothing to the enormous metal construction that they had stuck Straight THROUGH my babies’ leg. The room spun, there was no warning and nothing that can prepare you to realize just how horrible and terrifying this must have been for her- she had clawed herself open all over the place trying to get free when the anesthetic wore off. I started crying. I couldn’t even look at her.
The Dr. gently explained that with an external fixator (the Edward scissor hands thing) Meisje had a much better chance of fewer complications with her delicate skin so they made the call not to do a cast and pin her leg into a fixator. I sat down and tried not to hyperventilate in front of Meisje: tried to act like I wasn’t completely repulsed by the blood, the oozing, the huge (cm thick) metal stakes driven through her bones and flesh in multiple places. I wasn’t sure I could do this. 7 inches of glued together flesh was stretched to bursting with fluid buildup around the pins and external metal support structure locking the stakes in place. Her foot was at least four times its’ normal size and horribly discolored black and purple and an ugly red, where it wasn’t crisscrossed with glue and partially dried blood.
The doctor then grasped her leg and demonstrated how several times a day we were going to have to tightly squeeze all that ugly and work it up her leg to prevent infection from the fluid pooling in her leg. I couldn’t practice squeezing; I couldn’t even look at her leg. I asked if she could stay there longer, hoping I wouldn’t have to say I was not able to handle this. The doctor said the best thing for her was to go home, so I took a deep breath and grasped my discharge instructions and the thing that had replaced my adorable little baby and walked out to the car. She screamed the entire way home and took turns clawing at the carrier frantically, throwing herself and her metal around until I was terrified she would hurt herself further. I slid my arm into the carrier, and she was still crying, but they were happy cries in the dark. She climbed onto my arm like a life raft and cried quietly, refusing to let me move my arm until we got home. In the dark, with her tummy on my arm, she felt like my baby again, and I cried quietly with her.
As I’m sure any family in crisis will tell you, there are so many things that you take for granted every day: our jobs were very lenient and allowed my partner to bring Meisje to work, and she flipped her schedule for the first 10 days so that Meisje was never home alone. 12 weeks of crate rest seemed like a glimmering hope of the distant future when every hour brought new terrors; checking for infections, cleaning wound sights, hot packs, pain med dosing, escapes from the crate; the constant need to be in someone’s’ arms… the diarrhea caused by the pain meds that leaked all over her wounds and soiled all her bedding and bandages- more than once. Dr. Albertson took our frantic phone calls, kept her for the afternoon when we had no one to watch her, had us send pictures via email to determine what were ‘normal’ healing process and what signaled a fresh emergency.
Through it all, when I was at work and wishing I was with Meisje, Embrace would send me little emails from her claims rep checking on her progress, offering resources and information about healing, updating me on the claims that had been submitted. We cut out non-essential social functions and held her constantly whenever we were home to try and keep her sanity intact from being a year old sphinx in a box! There were tough days when I locked myself in the bathroom and cried; hearing a cat cry non- stop for so many weeks is like Chinese water torture. She had to have a cone on her head 24-7 to prevent contamination of the open wound sites and metal stuff; I spoon fed her meals to her, wiped her body down that she couldn’t clean herself, and was amazed at how patient and gentle she was to us through everything! There was no movement allowed at all, because there was so little circulation in a tendon, there was a high rate of failure with any movement.
Meisje wasn’t doing well psychologically: she was in torment. So just holding her in our laps turned into carefully removing her cone and positioning her just so in front of a food puzzle for her meals, and letting her bat the food out a teensy freeze dried bit at a time while trading the leash and harness between us to keep her from making a run for it; or trailing toys into her crate for her to bat at and hunt from a prone position. We would hold her on her back and let her rabbit kick a long cat toy with her good back leg to keep her muscle strength up; she would hunt it and chew on it and kick ferociously with her one good back leg for a very, very long time!
Her litter had to be completely emptied and thrown out daily, and she couldn’t climb into a regular litter box, so she had a kitten box in her crate with dust free litter. She was not allowed to sleep with us; she had to sleep in her crate. So every night involved bundling her up (she couldn’t climb under things if she got cold with her leg) and a warm wrap to get things going, a gerbil bottle for water so her bedding didn’t get wet…and sneaking upstairs to check on her and make sure she is doing ok in the middle of the night because she was suffering enough without anything else being wrong!
Since Meisje didn’t have a cast on, we got to watch the external healing process as it occurred. At 8 weeks we got to transition to a splint for a week, then a bandage for a week. Then no bandages for two more weeks of cage rest, where Meisje had spent 3 solid months in an XL dog crate with her little box and bedding. When the bandage came off it looked bad, but within three days, her skin irritation cleared and there were: almost no scars! It was like nothing had ever happened there. You can feel like a half-pea little bump where the permanent internal sutures are reinforcing her tendon, but within a week or two she was running around like a…baby Sphynx. To celebrate her total recovery, I signed Meisje up for her first cat show, where she placed second best all breed just two weeks after coming off of cage rest.
We couldn’t be prouder of our little girl, or more grateful that $2,300.00 of her $3,000 medical bills was covered by her $12.00/month insurance. While I would not wish this on any Sphynx or its’ family, dealing with the financial fallout along with the medical fallout would probably have been too much to bear. And if nothing ever happens to your Sphynx, it will still be money well spent in peace of mind.
Things that I encourage anyone going through a medical issue with their pet:
· Keep emergency pet insurance on all of your pets
· Be your pets healthcare advocate; If you have any concerns, don’t just mention them, explain them and get them written down in their chart and ask to see the plan to work around it, ask that the information be passed on to any doctors not present.
· Health insurance companies are going to ask for all of your pets’ medical notes and files since you welcomed them into your family. Be proactive and calls all veterinarians affected and let them know that they will be getting a call from your insurance and to please release all the notes. This will keep your claims from getting held up.
· There are anesthetics that are more expensive and so less common in veterinary surgery; they can also be easier on the heart and the pet waking up from the procedure. These options won’t necessarily be offered to you, but you can ask for them. Let your veterinarian know that you are concerned for your Sphynx’ heart and well-being. That you want the very best choices made with your pet and not your wallet as the focus. If you decide after the quote that you can’t afford it, at least you are making a conscious choice.
