Poor Giraffe!! (sorry so long)

Hi Everyone-

My cat Giraffe is an indoor/outdoor cat. He is neutered and is just the sweetest cat EVER! He ran away from us about a month ago and just came home today!! I was so happy to see him, but to my horror, he has a broken front leg!!!!!!!!! I could see bones sticking out and thought 'this can NOT be good' so I called the local vet and explained the situation. She told me that since they could not get him in today, I should call another vet about 40 minutes away. I called them and they said I could get him into the urgent care to be looked at for $72. I took him in... they looked at him and said he looked fine (except the broken leg) but that he had tapeworms and ear mites in addition to his broken leg. They said that it is so badly broken, they would just amputate it. The doc wrote me up an estimate for the surgery, anesthesia, worm treatment etc.. and the bill could range between $850-$1077!!

When I was waiting to get him in, I had done some searching online to see if I could get a guess of how much this could cost and the most I had read for an amputation is $600, which I had come to terms with and was OK paying--- but over $1000 just to cut off his leg (I mean he will never be able to use it again, it's not like they're fixing the problem completely for that price!!) I asked her if I could call around and she said he was OK to go home while I called around because he did not have a fever and he was pretty much acting like nothing happened. By the time I got out of there, it was too late to call around and my wallet was $72 lighter.

One way or the other he will get the treatment he needs--- but I was wondering if anybody could let me know if they have experienced something similar and how much they paid for an amputation? I'm going to call the vets around here tomorrow and my mom is going to call the local vets around there (she lives about an hour away from me-- I live in Wisconsin).

Thanks in advance!

I called around on Thursday but realized that many of the local vets don't do orthopedic surgery. I called one place and spoke to the doctor directly and he said about $350 for surgery and anesthesia. He said w/ pain meds etc the max would be about $450. I scheduled the appointment and took Giraffe in this morning. When I took him in, they asked if I wanted them to do blood work for $55 more so I agreed to that too.

Then the receptionist told me I had to have copies of his vaccinations-- which the first place I had taken him Wednesday didn't ask for so I didn't make it a point to bring them. She checked him in and told me to fax them over when I get home. I pulled his paperwork and realize that just after he ran away his vaccinations were due. I called the Vet hospital and explained he is overdue. They said that it was fine and they would do the vaccinations there before his surgery to make sure he's up to date. Before I got off the phone w/ her I asked for an invoice to see what they were gonna charge me.... but she said the doctor has to enter that all in which sounded kind of shady to me... so then I got a slight bit worried. She told me to call back after 3:00pm to see what the total was because the surgery would be done by then.

I called back after 3 and they agreed to fax me an invoice for the surgery, meds (including pain meds for when he comes home), blood work and vaccinations. The total bill came and to my surprise was $446!! I was very impressed w/ the service and pricing there and will recommend them to family and friends. I can't wait to pick up my kitty tomorrow- I miss him soooooo much.

I am so happy that you had a good outcome so far. Please keep him inside from now on. ( I'm sure you plan to anyway)

I'm glad it worked out better than you anticipated!

There is only one vet that I know of that does orthopedic surgery where I live, so if you need it you are kind of stuck bringing your babies to them.

I am owned by 2 beautiful 16 month old kitties who are my whole world, and 1 of them did that to me last month, except thank god he was only gone a week. But when he came back, he had a huge hole in is neck, and we had to rush him to the vet to get stitched up and broughtto date on his shots. His brother got sick a week later with bladder stones and a UTI, and within 2 1/2 weeks, I had run up $1150 on my 2 sweetnesses. Look around, there are vets who will work with you on the $$$, and I'm in Georgia, but my vet is hooked up with a finance company, and they actually run there own line of credit, so look into that. My mother has a cat that was hit by a car, and when she was there was severe nerve damage, and they said that they needed to amputate it. My mom got a second opinion who said that they actually didn't have to cut the leg off, so she cant use it, but it saved her from having to go through surgury, and she gets around just fine. Good luck with Giraffe, I hope she's OK, and at least she came back home.

How's Giraffe doing now?

Giraffe is doing just fine now. He is sleeping a lot (a combination of the meds he's on and trying to recover) but he is looking ok. they shaved a lot of his fur off to get to that area, so he looks a little strange right now, but overall he's the same little guy that I always knew Yes, he will definitely be indoors all the time now because I would never want something like this to happen again! I am just hoping for a speedy recovery for him.