Take care of your Blue: a terrible experience and lessons learnt
Hi everyone,
My cat fell from the fifth floor.
The damage was severe: a double fracture in one leg, another fracture in another leg, broken toes, and several more minor injuries.
He has had surgery. He is doing well now, but his recovery will be long: several months, assuming everything goes well. It is heartbreaking to see him with pins, splints, a limp, bandages, a cone, and that sad look in his eyes.
He cannot jump, run, or play during this long recovery period, and even then, nothing is fully guaranteed. How do you stop a cat from jumping? You confine him. That is what I had to do. He now spends the day in a large enclosure near me, in my living room. As soon as I let him out, he wants to climb somewhere high, which could break the pins in his legs and make his injuries much worse. So I only let him out three times a day, and I stay right behind him the whole time to stop him from jumping.
Giving him his medication — currently five different meds, twice a day — takes between 30 minutes and an hour each time. He hates it. He struggles. But strangely, I feel like he understands that I am trying to help him. I am fully committed to his recovery, and I have completely changed all my plans for the next three months so he can heal as well and as quickly as possible, hopefully without lasting damage. No holidays. Work pushed into the background. Everything reorganised.
The impact of one single fall is enormous: for him, for me, and also for my family, because I have children.
And it took literally five seconds.
I never let him go onto that balcony because it is not properly secured. But on the night it happened, it was hot, and I had set up a portable air conditioner, with the large exhaust hose going out through the window and a proper seal around it so he could not get out.
In the morning, I woke up and opened the window to bring the hose back inside. I thought my cat was in the living room. He was not. Apparently, he was under my bed, right next to the window.
The whole thing — bringing the AC hose back inside — genuinely took about five seconds. I did not even see him go out onto the balcony. I still cannot explain it. I closed the window again without even knowing he had gone outside.
Thirty minutes later, I started worrying because he had not come running for food like he usually does. I searched everywhere in the apartment, including all his usual hiding spots. Nothing. I kept searching and calling him. Still nothing. In moments like that, the fear rises very quickly.
Then I checked the balconies and looked down.
That is when I saw him.
Curled up, five floors below. He was moving. I shouted his name, but he did not lift his head.
“Picking up your cat” in that condition is not an experience I would wish on anyone.
About 40 minutes later, he was at an emergency veterinary hospital, with twisted legs and terrified eyes. He was treated extremely well there, but it took me too long to find the right emergency clinic because it was a Sunday and almost everything was closed. I lost a lot of time.
I am not writing this post for nothing. I have thought a lot about this accident, with a mix of guilt, sadness, and practical lessons. I have plenty of time to think about it: at night he meows, and he only calms down when I sleep close to him — which means on my sofa, near his enclosure.
These are the lessons I have learnt:
A) Be prepared.
Always know where to go in an emergency. Have the GPS location already saved in your car or phone. Know whether you need to call before going. Know which clinic is actually open on Sundays or at night. I was not prepared. I lost 15 minutes calling “emergency” clinics that were either busy or not answering, while I had my cat in my arms with his legs completely twisted and his breathing rough. A nightmare.
B) Always use a collar with a bell.
It sounds so stupid. I had removed his collar two weeks earlier because I thought it was not really useful for an indoor cat, and that it was probably better for him — and nicer when petting him. If he had been wearing his collar, I would have heard him probably.
C) Secure your balconies even if your cat is not supposed to go there.
Humans are fallible. Cats are clever, fast, agile, and very good at getting exactly where you do not want them to go.
D) Know where to buy emergency confinement equipment.
A fracture can happen very quickly. And recovery depends heavily on you: your cat must not jump for weeks. Here too, I lost time. The vets did not really help with this part either; one recommendation I received was to use an upside-down children’s playpen so he could not jump out. That is far too small for a cat and not sustainable for several months. I had to rush out and buy one large enclosure, then another one because the first was not solid enough. It was a mess.
E) The cost is huge.
All of this will end up somewhere between €5,000 and €10,000.
For a window being open for five seconds.
Take care of your Blue.
