Micio’s Femoral Head Ostectomy (FHO)

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…

Post Surgery
Originally uploaded by yojasonsparks.

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…

Micio's Healed Leg
Originally uploaded by yojasonsparks.

And here’s him and his physical therapist

Sleeping Nicely
Originally uploaded by yojasonsparks.

The Drinkwell Pet Fountain

When we got micio he was perfectly content to drink from a normal water dish. We read about other Ragdolls drinking from the faucet and we saw them sleeping in the sinks even. :) We thought this was very cute...

Well micio soon began to lounge around in the bathroom sink, which we thought was just adorable. Then, one day, when my wife was brushing her teeth, Micio decided he'd have a taste of the sink faucet. Awwww :)

Well, not so much... For some reason, now he wouldn't drink from his water bowl anymore! So he would constantly beg for water from the sink; he would even wake us up in the middle of the night! Being the ingenious one that I am, I started imagining a solution involving a fish pump and a waterfall of some kind. Luckily I searched the internet first :)

Low and behold! A pet fountain :)

Apparently this fountain has all sorts of other ancillary benefits, besides allowing my wife and me to get a full night sleep again. Cats seem to think that running water is fresher, something to do with water stagnating in the wild (when house cats ran wild and free). :) The running water also stimulates them to drink more. You and I it stimulates to pee, however...

So we love the thing... When byco joined our family we got the add on resevoir so we didn't have to refill the darn thing every day.

There is one small drawback with it, though, and that is cleaning. It is pretty difficult to clean it thoroughly, and my big hands don't quite fit in all the little nooks and crannies. They do sell a cleaning kit, but I find that a brillow sponge and a tooth brush work pretty well. I also run a vinegar solution through it every few months to dissolve all the nasty hard water deposits that collect all over the thing.

So, if your cat has taken a liking to faucet water and wont let you asleep at night, or if you just want a happier, healthier kittie, get a DrinkWell.

By the way, both micio and byco still seem to think drinking from the faucet is a treat. :)

Sleeping Ragdolls

Micio_Sleeping
Originally uploaded by yojasonsparks.



Byco Sleeping
Originally uploaded by yojasonsparks.

Is it a ragdoll thing to sleep like this? I have seen quite a few pics of other ragdolls, besides micio and byco, that sleep on their backs... Does anyone have a non-ragdoll that sleeps on his back?

Bothersome Brother

Bothersome Brother
Originally uploaded by yojasonsparks.

For some reason byco LOVES to come over just to bother micio whenever he sees him resting comfortably :)