If you’ll indulge me a, short cat medical story:
Back in the early 70s as a child, I grew up in rural Maine. A family of six kids and one parent working as a civil servant. Dad drove some 50 miles each way to work. We were poor by today’s standards. We lived on a dusty well travel dirt road and the surrounding woods were our playground.
One day one of our outdoor/indoor cats came home dragging it’s rear leg. It had been sheared off above the knee by a hay mower in one of the neighboring fields. It was hanging by some remaining skin. Too poor to afford surgery, Mom called a vet and was advised that it would fall off in a few days and heal itself
For a few days the cat dragged around this leg with no complaints. Soon it started looking pretty nasty. The bone was cut at an angle producing a knives edge. It became obvious this injury was not going to heal on it’s own.
On a warm summer afternoon, we got off the school-bus and made our way down the driveway. “Don’t come up here!” Mom yelled, from the elevated rear covered porch. This was our normal entry to the house through the kitchen. We knew this meant stay outside and play.
My Mom had worked as a nurse, and well, with six kids, animals, and limited money, you can imagine she had become a practiced medic. She was also a teetotaler and my father rarely ever drank or kept booze in the house.
Well, it seems there was dusty bottle of vodka from their drinking days hidden somewhere. Mom said a prayer to Jesus, cracked that bottle, and got the cat drunk. Then a couple shots for herself.
With a hack saw and sand paper from Dad’s tool chest, a kitchen knife and her sewing kit she was operating on that damn cat. She cut that bone square, sanded the rough edges and stretched and sewed the skin over it.
The cat soon healed and the result looked like the work of a master surgeon. Though with only three legs the cat quickly adapted. This cat still loved to be chased by us kids and could fly up a tree as fast as any four legged cat. It went on to live a long happy life, enjoy many more warm Maine summers.....