Giving Up On Loving. The Ultimate Cost To Grieving.

Grieving has consequences. Serious, mind numbing, life paralyzing consequences. I call it the collateral damage to loving so much it hurts too bad to consider ever doing it again. Grieving is the yin to the deep love of living that is its yang.

I get it. I really, really, do! I know what grieving is. How hard it is to get through once you get pulled into it. I know what loving costs.

Me and my beloved Jekyll, at the oncologists office.

As a veterinarian I see pet loss and grieving daily. It is the painful sunset consequence to every jubilant new puppy and kitten exam we get to share. Where there is a beginning for these new bundles there is also often a decade or more of rich, deep love that at some point meets it end. That goodbye can cost more than anyone signs up for when they go to bring home their new companion. Saying goodbye often causes a forever farewell for many pet parents. I fear too often that their grief often comes with an ultimatum for never grieving again.

Overwhelmingly I get three responses when my clients lay to rest their last pet...

1. "We want to travel."

2. "They are too expensive."

3. "I never want to feel this heartbreak again. It's too much."

Do you wonder how many people say this to me? A LOT. I have started to classify them, and by "them" I include all people who have to say adieu to their beloved pets, into two categories.

Number one. My category. The place where sharing our lives with pets is our purpose. The people who can't imagine, nor have ever dared, to not have a pet in our life. The people who can't live, won't live, wouldn't even try to imagine living without a pet in their life. I am this person. I grieve but I get back in the saddle. Again. And, Again. It never gets easier to grieve the next time. Even with all my practice.

Number Two; everyone else.

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Whenever I fear one of these reasons I always find it is almost impossible for me to answer these without clarifying who I am and what my life looks like.

Lewes Beach, delaware. My last vacation with my dying pup.

I LOVE to travel. In fact as I pen this I am on a train to NYC and then onto Boston. It is a 5 day jaunt. My three pups are with my parents. I am incredibly lucky to have parents who tolerate two puppies who most of the time act like deranged lunatics on an endless sugar high. The puppies love being there, and my parents love the puppy antics they entertain them with. We are a pet centered family. We all share each others pets and they share each others homes. If you aren't as lucky as I am to have family or friends share custody there are other options like Rover.com, or a boarding facility like my clinic runs. If you are a person who thinks that long term boarding, frequent boarding or even day trips are needed start acclimating your pup as soon as you get them. Make boarding a "normal" activity. Ask if you can start with a day or two a week and work up to overnights. Also get to know the boarding staff. They (we sure do) will send you daily photos, updates and help make their vacation as much fun as yours. If these don't work share your home with a pet sitter, or your pet can stay at doggie camp while you are away. If finances are tight a staycation, or working vacation are options. In some cases you can even bring your pet with you, although this might be too stressful for some pets. I have clients who chose to travel by motor home so their pets can be with them at all times.

The expense, well, all living creatures need appropriate health care, food, shelter, and these take financial resources. If you think that the emotional trade off has a financial restriction I can't argue with you, you just don't get it. There is no price for the love, devotion, and companionship they give for free. If you live within a tight budget, or need to budget for emergencies consider pet insurance, have an emergency pet fund, and find a vet like us who will help you with payment options if they are needed. Money doesn't have to be a defining limitation to loving a pet, but with all responsibilities that are willingly, consciously entered upon please don't adopt a companion if you cannot adequately compensate for them. I am not the veterinarian to preach about "don't have one if you cannot afford them," I am the veterinarian who will tell you from experience that the wealthiest clients don't necessarily make the most devoted parents. I will also adamantly state that caring for a pet with limited funds is possible. It takes a team approach. It takes honesty on the part of the parents. It takes openness, truthful discussions, devoted emotional investment that you share with the veterinarian, don't be angry at the vet, don't try to coerce, lie, threaten, manipulate, it will cost your pet and break the walls of trust that allow compromise to happen. I have managed difficult cases on a shoe string. It also takes a veterinarian willing to work with a budget and compromise. Not every vet does, and it is important to establish this very early on in the relationship.

Neutering Storm..

I can say this. There is a yin to grieving. There is a sunrise on the other side. There is a peaceful awakening when you open your life again to loving someone. There is also immense joy in opening your heart back up to another soul living in the today and joyful in the delight of the moment. Mourning often robs you of this. A distraction, a life to share, and a new place to build a future on is often the only thing that heals me.

I am a slave to loving my cats and dogs. It is an addiction like no other. I miss them painfully when I am away on vacation. But I am bursting with glee when they reunite with me. I mourn them when they pass on with a grief many non-pet people don't relate to, and I go on with another hopeful friend awaiting me somewhere. They are my constant source of hope and love. I still vacation, grieve them when they are gone, and invest in the care I owe them as my family.

I often tell people that I feel as if my life has been lived in chapters. Some were defined by places I lived, the events that occurred around them, but, most were overwhelmingly defined by my companions, the dogs, cats, and pigs who shared each place in time with me. They are the foundation to my life's story. The place markers, the main characters, and often the support system to get through.

Storm and Fripp.

As I lost Jekyll I gained two desperate disposed of souls who needed me almost as much as I needed them. If you have it to give cast it like seeds, watch them grow around you. It is what life means as it matters.

This is the balance to loss, living and loving again, for as long as this life will allow me.

For more information on pet loss and grieving please see my other blogs on this subject here;

Terminal Mom; The Pet Mom I Became As I Was Losing My Jekyll.

This Time Around. Coming To Terms With The Death Of My Dog.

The Phantom Effect. Pet Loss and Grieving.

The Aftermath of Pet Loss.

For more on Jekyll, his journey, and the process of digging myself out of the loss of him please see the past blogs on him here;

A Tribute to my Beloved Jekyll-Pup. May You Run Through The Fields Forever.

Jekyll

For more information on anything and everything pet related please ask us for free at Pawbly.com.

For more information on Jarrettsville Veterinary Center please visit our Facebook page, or website; JarrettsvilleVet.com

I am also posting lots of informative videos at my YouTube channel here.

Thank you for reading and sharing your life with the companions who remind us why life is worth working so hard to keep them in the lifestyle they have grown accustomed to.

Terminal Mom. The Pet Mom I Became While Losing My Jekyll-Pup

Death. It is unavoidable.. Un-avoidable!. In my veterinary day to day practice I see death most often creeping in like an insidious pestilence. The end,, that precipice place right before life meets forever absent, well that place, where I am mired now, that place sucks,, bad.

Your life and the way you see it, the lens you see everything through, changes. It has too, you have to filter out the clutter, minimize the distractions, focus on the living left to do. Life here at the transition out of it is like a vacuum, a quiet, lonely, absent, dark void.

I was one of those overprotective, hovering, helicopter moms. I have a beagle after all. You let those beagles out of your sight and off they go, into the clear blue yonder, nose to the ground, running, ears flapping in the wind their heels kick up. Beagles live on short leashes, or in kennels, or anchored to a pack and a leader. They make bad decisions if left untethered. Truth is they don 't know any better. It's genetics screaming at their primitive primal brain imprisoned by a nose that must follow where the trail lies, the bunnies are, and the adventure is certainly awaiting. They can't help it. They are a body enslaved to a nose they cannot turn off, nor ignore. I am that mom to a kid possessed, called, beckoned, reckoned to be elsewhere (except when the dinner bell rings or it is raining...beagles are bog avoiding babies in the rain). I am also the mom who keeps tabs,, makes sure they know where their kids are at all times.. I should say, was, I was that mom.

Now I am a mom with a kid on a short timetable. Weeks, maybe months, but damned unlikely to be a enough months to amount to a year. Life changes when the calendar gets to pages, single digits, pieces of a lunar fluctuation, or,  "this might be the last time we get to..." thoughts. My wishes for him have changed, come full circle. I want him to run, play, be the boy his beagleness calls him to be. We go for long walks, unleashed, unmonitored. He gets lost in being the boy with the nose in the dirt. We live without consequences in the wild. To die on the trail, possessed and unfettered by a disease that is eating him up from the inside, and backside out. If he passes while doing what he loves, being who he has always been, kicking up the scent he is intoxicated by, tracking his shadows and howling for their surrender I will be at rest with the unfair, unjust hand he was dealt. We all want our pets to die peacefully, in their sleep, oblivious to pain, in their beds at home. Me, for my hellion child, I want it to be living the life he was most fulfilled by. Running in the woods, being caught up in the moment and living the life of the boy he has always been, unleashed, undying, and blissfully euphorically purposeful.

 

P.S. I have to post this after Jekyll's passing. It was not completed in time to see his paw prints on my doorstep any longer.

I can tell you all that he got to be the beagle he was up until his last moments with us. He was loved, on his rolling hills of lush green and endless possibilities always calling him yonder.

P.S. Jekyll passed away August 26, 2018. I miss him everyday. I honestly didn't know how I would, or could go on.... but I did.. and I'm still grateful for everyday together.

For more on Jekyll, his disease, my struggle to get through it, and what the other side looks like, please follow this blog. Or you can find me answering questions for free on Pawbly.com, or, sharing cases, and living life helping other companions at my Jarrettsville Vet Facebook page, or on my YouTube channel.

The Real Cost Of A Puppy

If you haven't had a puppy recently, gone through all of the ups and downs, sweaty nights of worry, long days of potty training, and messy clean ups when "they just came in from outside?" in the last few years, then I strongly recommend that you listen to my tale of Poe before you willingly and feverishly jump back into those puppy days again.

This is Poe,,, so impossibly cute, fluffy, small and adorable you can't contain yourself from scooping him up for a face dive smother. He is the epitome of everything that causes the heart to flutter. All puffy-fluffy rounded edges of irresistible and full of possibility. He is perfect just the way he was born... they all start out like this.

It's us, the humans, who keep having to relearn what we can't get right, over and over again....

Poe came from Craig's List. An ad online. Cheap and available at the touch of a cell phone text message. Ugh,,, the number of bad endings that start at Craig's List. I wish I could say that I have more happy endings than disastrous consequences from Craig but in truth I wish Craig took his List and shoved it, hard, and indefinitely. Craig has no business in the pet business.

Every person who has no business breeding hocks their unplanned pregnancies via Craig and that damned List. Get yourself a dog, or two, and POOF! you are in business! Lucrative, dog breeding, business. Everyone oogles over puppies. And,, your dog, your dog is of course the perfect specimen. No courses, credentials, signature clad paperwork, no accredited oversight, no business related taxes or license fees, ordinances, nothing. Put one dog with another, call it a "designer" breed (people pay BIG bucks for them,, sshh! don't call anything a mutt anymore,, no money in "mutt"). Go online buy some acronymed derivative of something with a K(ennel) and a C(lub) in any random order and now your puppies are "purebred with papers." (Probably the biggest sham around).

$80 bucks. That's what Poe cost. His new dad and old dad met at a nearby parking lot and exchanged cash (always cash) for a small being of mercies being. That's all it takes. No questions, no paperwork, no legitimate form of this being anything other than a casual exchange. Sounds like a great deal, doesn't it? $80 bucks for that face! I mean, who can say no to that?

ME! I will say NO! I will say it for about ten thousand more times over my vet career.  I will roll my eyes, swallow hard, sink into my shoes each and every time I hear this prelude. "I got him off Craig's List." Every time I meet a new pet for their first vet visit I ask. It is important for me to know. I need to heighten my degree of paranoia and understand how much more at risk to everything these guys usually are.  Why is that? Because, I know, I have learned first hand, how terribly awful these stories can end. You haven't heard about how disastrous Craig's goods can be? Have you? Well, sit back, hold on, and let me tell you how hard a happy ending from this beginning can be, and often is... Let me tell you about Poe.

The person who had no business with puppies dishes them out to anyone with the cash to exchange. Too often this is unknowing meets unprepared,, and too often I can't cast blame unequally on one side versus the other.

Puppies, kittens, I would venture to say every living being, listed needs a better chance than Craig can deliver. These are living, breathing, vulnerable beings. Let me highlight "vulnerable" again.

I could go on for days. Will it change? Or, ever stop? Not in our current climate. The want ads are the lazy mans answer to affordability meets accessibility. No contracts, no fenced in yard requirements, no questions asked. Me personally, I take Craig's List to be a puppy mill incognito.

Poe was purchased by a family with good intentions. A puppy is pure joy. Undeniably simply flat out ubiquitous joy. They all start out like this. Joyful. The dream of a lifelong companion to grow old with, but, as every vet and rescuer knows the first two weeks are fraught with worry that there is some lingering issue about to rear its ugly Sith yielding cypher.

Poe was as unplanned in birth as he was in purchase. Poe probably had a mom who wasn't vaccinated, and a dad who was most likely a transient fly by night passer-byer. No decision with any living thing should be based on these.

Within days of purchase Poe got sick. He wasn't playful, wasn't barking and was both vomiting and having diarrhea. All the classic signs of parvovirus which was the first thing he was tested for when he arrived at the vets office.

A parvo puppy is like a box of chocolate. (I stole that from one of my favorite movies,, but it holds). You never know what you are going to get. Medicine is also like this. There is no crystal ball to foretell the future. No play book to follow. And, our last best analogy is to try to give you "an average case" scenario, but, even this doesn't always readily apply. Parvo can be quick, cheap and transient, or, prolonged expensive and still deadly. Which puppy gets which? That is all guessing and hoping.

Veterinarians have to prepare clients for this. The complete Pandora's box a parvo puppy presents. Within a day or two of being placed in his new home Poe was a sick puppy with a treatment plan that started at a few hundred bucks and had the potential to end at thousands and still include death. Who, which of these  poorly pet-educated brand new parents can face this. They did just pay $80 bucks for him. Poe's first vet visit was crippling emotionally. His first visit also cost over $150 and he only had a diagnosis,,, there was no treatment included with this.

Stubborn determination is a valuable trait to possess when you are a doctor. I can tell you all straight up that I have saved more cases by my dogged determination than my decades of intellectual tutelage. My devotion to my patients, my sheer hatred for unhappy sad endings, and this infatuation with feeling like love conquers all is omnipresent. It is how I have decided I must live this veterinary life I am trying to live through and still like myself when I hang up my stethoscope. Happy endings happen if you let them.

I always (YES! always!) see parvo as treatable. I don't ever suggest giving up on treating them until they prove me otherwise. I firmly believe that this disease is our fault. That negligent, unknowing, or otherwise breeder, parent, transport person, well intentioned or not, exposed this puppy and medicine is available to treat. But, I also always have to be honest. I have to confess to people that I never know which puppy is going to go which way, and even with all of the money in the world, (for which I have yet to meet the person who can admit this), you might still lose your puppy. It just goes like that. It's a crap shoot. Surely treating earlier and aggressively increases your odds of winning, but even these guys can take tragic turns and succumb. It's a tough one to watch. A puppy dying slowly in front of you. The worst deaths are the deaths without empathy and advocacy. I say this because I have seen it. Its not fair, it's not right and it's not the path I take.

Every,, yes, every parvo puppy who meets my hands is offered treatment. I don't want to sound self-righteous, I am not. I want to sound determined. I am determined to give every treatable patient a chance. Screw the pessimists, the hardened, the pragmatic economists. That face! Do you remember that face? Try euthanizing it. Try to talk yourself in and out of all the excuses to make it justifiable. I'll give you a minute....

When Poe's story crossed my path it was a quick three sentence inquiry from a fellow veterinarian.

"We have a parvo puppy here. Can you take him? We don't have an isolation area."

Now this is a veterinarian I know well. She actually worked at my practice for many years. She knows how I feel about parvo. And puppies. She knows where my heart strings are anchored and how to make a serenade of them.

"We don't have an isolation area either." I reply. I know she already knows this.

"And the guy has no money."

Of course he doesn't. If he did she would have sent him to the ER, who is more than capable and versed in treating this.

I call her. The texts aren't going to shed enough light to make this case comprehensible or resolvable.

The story is always (always, always,,,) the same. New (brand spanking!) puppy just purchased, (no accountable breeder would have unvaccinated, unquarantined puppies to set out into the world... never mind the cash exchange in the parking lot and no accompanying paperwork), and almost immediately the puppy gets sick.. really, really sick. New pet parent has no idea what parvo is? No way to transfer to the ER (who requires a $1,000 deposit and forewarns the final cost might be a multiple of this), and now the client is calculating if it is easier and cheaper to just get a replacement? After all they have only had this puppy a few hours/days.

Do the math. This whole scenario started with simple math. $80 bucks off Craig's List versus almost (or up to) $1,000 through some breeder.

The conversation with the other vet goes a little like this..

"We want to transfer him to the ER. He is dehydrated. Can you use some of your Good Samaritan funds to help?"

This puppy will do best at the ER. They can provide 24/7 care. They are however, expensive. People don't go because they don't want to, or don't recognize their value, they don't go because they cannot afford to.

"Ummm, what the??,,, that money is money we raised. We internally feed into, for our clients.. the short answer is "no." I don't apologize for my audibly shock-filled curt reply. But, I cannot stop talking here. Remember that face? She has already, before the text messages even started, sent me that photo.

"I am happy to show you how to create your own internal clinic fund for your own clinic. Or show this owner how to set up a Go Fund Me page." I reply.

 ... crickets....

I speak again, "If the only options come down to euthanasia then call me. I will see if I can get one of the rescues to take him and I will provide the care pro bono." Like I said I always offer options. They may not be what the pet parent wants to hear, but I am not offering for them, I am offering to give this puppy a chance.

"Ok, I'll see what he (the owner) wants to do. I'll call you back." click.

I go back to work. There are other cases in front of me to worry about. Internally I feel that bubbling nausea of frustration meets vomit induced worry that another sick puppy will be biting the dust because another vet who wants to feel like they are offering empathy is merely shirking the guilt and another vet practice who is happy to let me do what they can for their own patient for free.. I have to admit it gets overwhelming feeling like I am the only one around willing to offer and provide empathy with meaningful service and care. Not just lip service and wash your hands.. (permit me a bit of bitterness in my verbal exasperation.. I have to harbor it and set it to sail as a sort of cleansing endeavor).

Poe arrived a few hours later. I documented his arrival the next day. He arrived quiet (always a bad sign), depressed, and dehydrated. He didn't interact with us, he just sat there cowering on his pee pad  in his bare wired easy to decontaminate cage.

So the story begins. Will he make it? Will it take weeks of no sleep? Wondering and worrying and trying to protect my heart as he tries to survive? This is also always the same. Invest yourself without killing yourself.

Miraculously Poe only got better. He never had one episode of vomiting or diarrhea with us. Within 2 days I was pretty sure he would be ok. We, the collective small group of us who had intervened on his behalf, all talked about how lucky he had been. How nice it was to have an easy case with our much sought after happy ending. At least the ending of parvo.

We also talked about what was the right thing to do next?

The real hard cost to us was a few hundred dollars. We all agreed to donate our time. It was a gift we were happy to give him. I suggested that we give Poe back to his family. We had heard that there were children who were crying and distraught with the surrender of their puppy. That was something we didn't want to be a part of. We wanted to remedy that, if we could.

I called the vet who knew the family and asked if it would be a good idea to at least offer Poe back to them? (in other words, I was asking her to vouch for them as I didn't know them at all).

"Yes, the kids would be so happy. He (the dad) seemed like an honest good guy,, he was crying too."

And so it was, a veritable happy ending would be had in totality! We were all conjuring up the reunion videos in our heads. The crying crowd as we delivered a healthy puppy back to 4 little kids. Move over Walt, we were about to have our own Disney moment.

Now I am a pragmatic seasoned vet. I have learned (always the hard way) that helping people isn't just about getting them across the land mines, it is about being to that glorious sunset with the rest of the sun filled days behind you safely. I owe Poe this too. We wanted to spell out in black and white what being a pet parent entailed; regular vet visits, vaccines, preventatives, neutering, training, time and money. Love, yes, love is imperative, but responsibility is what assists you in curtailing the remaining potential land mines ahead.

We all agreed to give Poe back without any incurred costs. I would use donations and we all donated our time. We all felt really good about being a part of the good in the world when there is already too much sadness.

I called Poe's dad to share the news. I confessed that we don't usually do this. We don't usually contact the original owners, but Poe had been such an easy success that we felt it was the right thing to do in his case. I discussed the plan to help identify future costs of care, and even told him that we could help him find low cost options. Poe would be given back to them healthy and happy and we would help them with whatever he needed to stay this way.

He told me his kids had been upset with Poe's departure. He also said he wanted to speak to his wife about it. I left him my cell phone number and he said he would call me back.

He never did. He also never said "thank you," or, "I'm glad/relieved/happy, etc, that Poe is ok."

And so the dream ended,,, the fairy tale was half fulfilled. Poe made it..

Poe is still with us. A week and a half later. We will do everything we can to be a part of his life. Indefinitely.

And maybe there is one less Craig's List customer out there? Maybe he feels like he dodged a bullet? Maybe he thought that $80 is all a pet needs for their whole life? Maybe he just didn't have the $500 bucks I estimated Poe would cost over the next 6 months, and he couldn't listen to the kids cry again? I really don't know?

Maybe being a dreamer is not as important as a doer? And just maybe I need to revel in my own happy endings, even when the world doesn't deliver them in packages as marvelous as a puppy.

I would like to Thank Jenn for always being ready to take another potential heart break on. For making as many sacrifices as she does and for hoping for "happily ever "after as often as I do. But mostly for making every case a purpose and for never asking or expecting anything in return. It  is always about the animals who need us, never about what it costs us.

If you have a question relating to your pets care you can ask me, the whole team of us at Pawbly, for free at Pawbly.com.

If you want to learn more about Poe please see my YouTube channel here. Or, follow our latest rescue endeavors at our Jarrettsville Vet Facebook page. 

Seraphina. Lip Avulsion in a Hit By Car Cat. How to, why it is so imperative to do early, and cost of care. Warning surgery photos!

Serafina

This is Serafina. Serafina was brought to me one afternoon by a client who witnessed her, minutes before, dragging herself across the road as numerous other drivers passed her by. That single act by this brave woman to stop her car, pull over, and go out into the road to get to her saved Serafina's life.  

Seraphina was a wisp of a kitten. Barely three pounds in all, mostly fluff and wide green eyes. When she came to me, just a few minutes after being the victim of a hit and run, (although this wasn't witnessed by the finder I deduced it by the severity of her injuries), she was being cradled in a towel. Her face was obviously injured. Her chin had been detached from the bottom row of teeth and lay flapping midway down her mandible. Her pupils were different sizes, (indicating head trauma), and a left back leg just sort of lifelessly dangling. She was adorably and unabashedly obviously cute, but, also crunchy. Crunching is broken bones. She was crunching from the bottom of her sacrum, because her tail was pulled off of her pelvis, which, by the way was broken in multiple places, and there was a long list of worries I had just on my very quick preliminary over view of her. 

The first few hours were about assessment, observation and pain management. She didn't have much going for her. She didn't seem to be able to feel or recognize her broken left leg. We weren't sure that the head trauma wouldn't cause hemorrhage in her brain which could kill her. With little more than a warm bed, food, an opioid to place inside her cheek she was left for 12 hours to see if she would survive overnight. I wouldn't have suspected that she would have survived her injuries. Life is like that. Chance, fate, luck, it is often little more than this. 

It is important to pause the story here. There is a knee jerk reaction to protest the black and whiteness of this particular case at this specific moment in time. There are spectators among the readers who wanted me to start fixing her. On. The. Spot. Life in medicine in the world of severe trauma isn't like this. In many cases we have to wait to collect information before attempting to repair the obvious that is not life threatening. Serafina's injuries; skull fracture, leg fracture, tail avulsion and lip avulsion are not life threatening unless severe hemorrhage or nerve loss is occurring concurrent with them. She also did not have a parent to provide consent to our care so we have to be careful about what we can and cannot do for her. Many (too many I fear) would see this list of injuries, no discernible home to provide financial assistance or care for. The list of all of the "worst case scenarios" is long, ominous, and foreboding. Many just shrug that they are sparing her further suffering and would have put her down right here, right now. My personal plea is to not give up. These are almost always savable. Maybe not "perfect" anatomically, but perfectly happy and functional, able to live a long happy, healthy life.

When she first arrived at the clinic we tried to find her home. We hope each and every time an unknown pet is brought to us that there is some worried parent out searching for them that we can locate and notify for a tear filled reunion. Some small semblance of extending the compassion we inherently feel when we see some little thing so fragile hurting yet alone and at the mercy of the world. We spent days searching to see if she belonged to someone near where she was found. She was so young, only about 3 months old, but she was affectionate and trusting. She knew people and she wasn't afraid of them. She had no microchip, and no person came forward to claim her even after her finder canvassed the area where she had been found. She was one of the too many who gets overlooked, forgotten especially when trauma with a big price tag presents. She is one of too many unwanted, which makes her disposable and easily replaceable. 

The next morning she was still brightly enthusiastic to see her breakfast and made herself very quickly yet sheepishly at home. The first 12 hours are critical. The first two days reveal almost everything you need to know from where you are and how far is needed to get to fly the coop. 

It was two days before I was convinced that she had any nerve function to her broken leg. This was the first hope to save it. She also was beginning to drag herself to the litter box to go to the bathroom. 

For cats, in my opinion, for a trauma patient to be able to survive they need to be able to do the most basic of things, this includes; eat, drink, pee, poop and ambulate. These things must be intact to allow them a reasonable chance at being adopted and cared for adequately to allow them a safe and comfortable life for many years to come. (This is a general rule. Not a hard and fast rule.. ask me about Dora someday).

Within a week Seraphina was beating all the odds. She was alive. She was improving miraculously and at an alarming speed. The injuries that might have been life ending were being crossed out like a bucket list to live.

The last item to resolve, the only one I really felt compelled to correct, the one that would get worse over time, (unlike all the others who were correcting themselves on their own), was her lip. It needed to be reattached to her mandible. It had come in damaged and ripped off the chin of her face, but it was contracting with scar tissue and pulling the chin off of her face at an alarm quick pace daily. Scar tissue is designed by the body to close wounds, pull tissue together, but if the anchor is released the pulling of the tissue can worsen an injury. 

The edge of the front of her lip was being pulled down her chin. Food, hair, and debris was collecting in this pocket. She was uncomfortable with her non-functional chin in the wrong place. 

Lip avulsions happen most commonly, (I have seen it twice, both times with a cat, both times when they had been hit by a car), because the skin of the chin is pulled off the bone of the  mandible when the face is pushed into the ground as the body is pushed forward. Serafina was very, very lucky. Her mandible was not broken, just the skin torn away.

There are reasons I waited a week to do this surgery. She had worse injuries to heal from. Possible internal trauma that would have  made surgery more dangerous and tenuous. The lip had to wait for her to be well enough to survive anesthesia. 

Serafina is lying on her back. Her jaw is clipped,
scrubbed and draped out of the surgery field. 

Serafina went under anesthesia to have the lip replaced and secured to her jaw. This is not a surgery we do every year. Maybe once in a decade. 

Cleaning the tissue, (there was an immense amount of hair, food, debris stuck between her lip and jaw was done under anesthesia. It was the only way it could be done. This is delicate sensitive tissue. You can't clean it well with her awake.

Once the tissue is cleaned it was loosened. We call it undermining. The tissue, her jaw and lower lip was shortening as it was being pulled toward her neck. It is scar tissue contracting. To relieve the tension you have to break down this fibrotic tissue and pull the flap back into place.

Stents (small pieces of surgical i.v. tubing) are used to go through the mandible skin and then looped around her canine teeth. It was the most exciting, aesthetically transforming surgery, (and quickest meets easiest), I have done in a long time. If I could do this surgery every day I would! It was that fulfilling.

A better close up of the closure and stents.

 Waking up her new chin,, just as it is supposed to be.

Serafina was lucky. Incredibly lucky. This case will have a happy ending because someone intervened immediately. She also had her internal organs intact. Bones will heal, especially in young animals. They need time, patience, containment, and monitoring from someone who knows what to look for and what to worry about. 

The cost of the surgery to repair her lip was about $200. It was that quick and easy. Our internal Good Samaritan Fund will cover it.

I have read posts where veterinarians are too afraid, tentative, reluctant to do this surgery. I want to send out a personal plea to all of you looking at a kitten, cat, dog, puppy who has this injury; if the mandible is intact, the canine teeth are anchored, then please try. It is so simple and easy. I'll help in anyway I can.

If you are a pet lover, pet parent, or pet expert I hope that you will join me on Pawbly.com to lend a helping hand for others who need us. If you are interested in more informative cases you can follow me on YouTube, or you can follow our amazing Jarrettsville Vet Facebook page.

Here is another blog about Serafina. The WHY In Who I Am.