Sounds scary huh? Well it was…
It all started one day when Micio jumped out of my wife’s lap and caught his leg a little weird. He whined and limped a little bit, but not much and it seemed to come and go. We are concerned cat parents, though, so we took him to the vet after a couple days of catching him limping slightly.
The vet took some X-Rays and said he thought everything looked ‘OK’, bastard… Well he wasn’t ‘OK’. We took him home and just took special care to be gentle with him, but he kept limping and whining. Then, a week or so later, I picked him up and his leg swung up in an odd way, making him wince in pain; I felt terrible. He seemed to be ‘OK’ though…
The next morning, after waking up, he tried to stand up on our bed, cried and lay right back down. This scared the crap out of me, so I took him to the floor and tried to stand him up, but he just lay back down. He tried to walk, but he limped TERRIBLY. We took him right to the vet, who took more x-rays. This time he told us Micio had a growth plate fracture on the head of his femur.
(aside: A growth plate is where our bones grow longer when we’re young. They calcify over when we are fully grown. Micio, at 1.5yrs, being a ragdoll, wasn’t done growing…)
To this we responded, “But, you told us he was ‘OK’…” Anyway…
What he told us next was even worse… In order to fix Micio, we had to perform a FHO. This meant cutting off the head of his femur. We were shocked! The vet assured us that a ‘false joint’ would form and that since cats are light and four legged he would recover completely; we wouldn’t even know he had the procedure. Well considering the vets history of prognosis we were a little skeptical. But, Micio was in a LOT of pain, so we decided to go ahead with it.
Leaving Micio at the vet over night was the hardest thing we’ve ever had to do… We went home and googled FHO. We read up on quite a few positive stories, like this one will turn out to be. :) We even read studies of when they are done and how, more often than not, recovery is complete…
Here’s what he looked like when we got him home…
We had to do ‘physical therapy’ three times a day where we would move his leg in and out, he really disliked this… The reasoning behind it was that it would prevent adhesions from forming, resulting in limited mobility. We diligently performed all the proscribed therapy and took him in for checkups, but he never seemed to get back to 100%. He would still favor the leg, we called him tripod. :) He would clearly hop on three legs down the stairs and would lean on the left leg when he was standing still (even after 5 months). The vet said that it was because he wasn’t getting enough exercise. Dogs are easier in this respect because you can take them to the park and they happily run around and, as a result, heal nicely. Cats, on the other hand, are terribly indignant, and only do what they want…
Enter Byco :)
After byco grew up a bit, he began to get micio running around whether he wanted to or not. We noticed that Micio started jumping up on the counters again to get away from the little beast (he had stopped doing this altogether after the surgery). We noticed he even stopped favoring his right leg. Now, one year and three months after the surgery, after a lot of byco’s own flavor of rehab, you REALLY can’t tell micio had a FHO. It just took a bit longer than the vet promised…
Here’s his leg now…
And here’s him and his physical therapist
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«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 211 of 211Hi Lenny's Mom, I'd expect 3-4 months for the fur to grow back. My Siamese just hit the 4 month mark and I noticed his hair is all back to full length. That's about the same for the other cat surgeries I've had done. My Siamese is one breed where the hair comes back much darker than the original coat though, so he's light haired up front and dark in back with a distinct line where they shaved him, on both sides. Some other breeds can have the same effect. As long as they're healthy and happy I don't suspect they care. :)
My Balinese cat, Tavish, had the surgery almost three months ago. Balinese (just a long-hair Siamese) have quite long hair, and his is less than half its original length after three months. So, I'd guess six months for a long-hair cat to grow his hair back. Like the Siamese of the last poster, his regrown hair is black. I assume it will eventually turn the same color as the rest, but I really don't care two hoots, and more important, neither does he.
He is back to 95% of his former physical capacities, and 100% of his former cheerfulness and playfulness. This weird operation, in which I originally had little confidence, is really quite a miracle. The best $2000 I ever spent.
The other day he "knocked" at the door to be let in,and I opened the door, and he ran away outside with that bum-in-the-air, tail-straight-up rabbit-bounce that means "Fooled you! Made you open the door!" The point is, not only does his hip allow him to run, but it allows him to strut his stuff. Amazing.
Even though this blog is 7 years old, it was still so nice to read! You inspired me to write my own blog, moFHOsurgery.blogspot.ca. My cat is now day 7 post surgery! You can follow our journey to recovery, I try to post every day!
My male Balinese, 15 lbs. and very long, 2 1/2 years old, broke his second hip tonight. He made it back to my front door and moaned to be let in. This time I knew what it was, and took him straight to the vet for a pain shot. Tomorrow morning an x-ray, and then the surgery to schedule; meanwhile, pain meds.
He knew the routine: he calmed when I put him in the carrier, and was very docile (unlike last time) at the vets.
The first surgery was so miraculous -- he gained back everything but a bit of hair -- that I'm not so freaked out this time. I've been expecting this, after all I've read on this site -- it's clear that he (male, big, two+, and early neutered) was doomed to have both hip joints underdeveloped.
More when I know more. He's resting well now, after the pain meds.
Sorry to hear he broke the second one. It makes me wonder if this is something the Siamese/Balinese are more prone to? It was a year ago this week my Siamese broke his first but all his regrown hair is still very dark. Best of luck to you and the cat, in a couple of months he'll back to normal. Fortunately this will be the last broken bone, hopefully!
A SECOND BREAK: Tavish, who broke his right hip in June, now has broken his left hip in October. He will have his second surgery on Monday. They're giving him, again, Bupren as a painkiller, and he reacts badly to it -- growling, paranoid, won't eat or drink.
@KEN My girls don't like Bupren products either! They just trip too hard on it and it makes their little heads way too loopy, some fight it by getting aggressive, drooling, staring into space. Mine never "sleep" or "relax" on it. There are others pain killers to choose from. Maybe ask your vet to explore alternatives? We found one for our girls that helps them rest and seems to give comfort. Here is a good resource:
http://www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?C=299&S=2
Third morning after the surgery, Tavish woke up cheery and playful, and I haven't given him bupren since. He's incredibly mobile now, main battle is to keep him from taking off collar and taking out stitches.
So Tavish took out all his own stitches at the 7 day point. Now 11 days, no collar, no meds, acting pretty much as he did before surgery (except no jumping, no climbing yet).
Reading about Micio's surgery inspired me to write about my own cat, Mo's surgery!
If you are interested, go to mofhosurgery.blogspot.com!
He is doing sooo well about 3 months post-op and I would recommend this surgery to absolutely everyone!
Ken, scary that the other hip went too! I'm always cautious that it may happen to Momo's other hip but so far so good! Just a few details that I've left for others information- Momo was neutered at about 5 months old and weighed just over 14lbs when he needed his FHO. He was 2.5yrs old at the time of surgery. Like I mentioned in my first post, I had no idea how it happened, but x-rays showed a clean dislocation of the femoral head (which looked like a cap) to the neck of the femor. It literally looked like it just POP! came apart. More than ever, I think he was just having a good, but doomed, stretch when it dislocated. I don't remember how long it took for his hair to grow back but he is a longhair domestic. He is mostly white and so there is no discoloration :) He's still not as jump happy as he used to be, but that's probably his lazy personality and the availability of unintentional 'step stool' furniture around the house.
I have recently acquired another male kitten, Mephistopheles, and though he was the runt of the litter and seems destined to be tiny (a bare 2.1 lbs at 10wks!), I will be wary of him and his itty bitty hips. Momo chases Meph around and I'm glad that they're becoming fast friends. To look at Mo now, and you would be hard pressed to believe that he needed surgery to REMOVE a portion of his femur. He lifts that leg like it's nothing when cleaning himself ;)
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