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For those of you that follow my posts on News24, I am an opinionated – I hesitate to use the word writer –stubborn, full of S**t woman who likes to scribble her thoughts down on public forums. Often people disagree with me and that is okay. Today, I am writing an article about my experience on 26.01.2015, one I never thought I would have to face. It isn't to outdo anyone else’s stories/experiences but simply because I am enraged and wanted any readers who come across this article to know about what is going on and how to avoid it.
Two nights ago, my sweet, gentle, caring cat, Elli, got shot by a high powered rifle. She is 3 years old. This is a cat, who just wants to love and be loved. She is incredibly affectionate and spends her days either sitting on my property wall soaking up the sun, or visiting all my neighbours to go smell their flowers and get a chin scratch from them. She is well known on my road, and the people that live on it are kind, and generous and have often stopped in the street to tell me stories of how Elli popped by and came and slept on their outside bench. She brings joy wherever she can.
My baby had to drag herself home to me with a broken leg. I came into the lounge and found her collapsed and crying, and when she tried to stand, her body wouldn't hold her and her front left paw was skew and badly damaged. After rushing her through to Cape Animal Medical Centre, they confirmed a break in her front leg and kept her overnight on medication until I could contact my local vet in the morning to ask for advice. I did not sleep at all that night. The next morning, I collected the X rays, checked in on my baby who was in full on attack mode no doubt from being in a strange place and being poked and prodded when she was already in pain.
After consulting with my vet, and seeing the X-Rays for myself, I had confirmation. Someone had taken a High Velocity Air Rifle and shot my cat through the front left leg. So high powered was shot, that the bullet shattered both her bone (Humerus) and the actual bullet itself. There was nothing my vet could do. Elli immediately got referred on an emergency consult to Panorama Veterinary Clinic to see Dr Michael Grey a specialist Orthopaedic surgeon. The news wasn't good. Yesterday was spent having to make a choice of three decisions, each of which was devastating in their own respect:
1. Euthanasia – Because of the sheer amount of medical costs involved in having to try fix or amputate, this option was recommended to me by one vet.
2. Amputation – The –Rays showed multiple shards of bone and metal pieces and Elli repairing the leg did not seem a feasible option, amputation would have been one large operation, but cats have led happy good quality lives on 3 legs.
3. Repair – A repair could be attempted with plates and screws but there was a major concern due to the lack of bone left to actually attach the plates too.
With both amputation and Repair, she was due to have early onset Arthritis. With a repair, there was a 50% probability that she would need to have it amputated any-ways. If we saved her leg, it would never have full functionality again, if we got extremely lucky she might be able to walk with a severe limp.
Euthanasia – The Cheapest Option.
Amputation – Roughly R15 000
Repair – R15 000 excluding the cost of therapy and weekly veterinarian check-ups for the plate and screws located on the outside of her leg and bandage replacements.
Elli went into surgery yesterday afternoon. I spent the entire day sobbing and pouring eye drops into my eyes so I could keep them open. After nearly 5 hours of surgery we got the call last night from the surgeon to say ‘it went well and they managed to align more of the remaining bone than they thought they could’.
I will be collecting her this afternoon where she will be confined to a box for 3 months, separated from her sisters to encourage natural rehabilitation. Our journey to paying off the bills begins, and Elli’s long and painful journey has already started. She is feisty and sore and not happy. And it’s all because some bloody bastard shot her.
Rest assured – If I ever find out who did this, I will beat him/her to within an inch of their life and make them beg me to kill them!
While this may be an assumption, if the person shot my cat for fun, you deserve to die! If you shot her because she was on your wall and causing your dogs to bark – Let me explain something to you… I cannot control where my cats roam. If it such a problem – Then put some flyers up and find out whom she belongs to. Take a glass of water and chuck it at her. They don’t like that and she will run away. I will even buy you the water gun. Your negligence and cruelty has changed the life of my baby forever. When you dogs bark, I do not shoot them with rifles. Do you know why? Because that would make me a sick bastard and sick bastards need to get locked away.
Signed off ‘Livid, Saddened, Pissed Off and Hell in”
