Azul is my 11 1/2 year old Turkish Angora. She is the only purebred cat I have (the others are rescues). My sister bought Azul at a cat show in Dallas and brought her home, expecting to enjoy her company for many years. Unfortunately, her husband said "no cats" so my sister called me to see if I was interested in taking her at the time. I told my sister that I would keep Azul until her husband changed his mind. That was eleven years ago.
Recently, I noticed that Azul was limping a bit on her right front leg. She has always been a pain when it comes to clipping her claws (she bites me when I try this) and brushing out tangles in her coat and I have often let it go too long before getting her groomed. I thought maybe one of her front claws had curled around and was digging into her foot pad, causing her to limp. But then I also noticed that she seemed to have some disfigurement on her leg. Calling the vet the next morning, I got her in to be examined and groomed ASAP.
My vet, Dr. Bekkah Byrd (who I consider the best vet I've ever worked with), informed me that Azul had a lump on the elbow of her right front leg and took some culture samples to make some slides to send to the pathology lab. When the report came in, the results pointed to a suspected fibrosis or mesenchymal neoplasm and the recommendation was to remove the growth and submit it for biopsy to the lab. So, back to the vet for Azul to have the growth removed from her leg. The lab report came back indicating the problem was a soft tissue sarcoma, intermediate grade malignant. Damn. Azul had cancer. The oncologist at the lab strongly recommended "disarticulation amputation." Azul's right front leg had to come off. Dr. Byrd was optimistic that she would quickly adapt to having just three legs.
I took Azul in yesterday for surgery. X-rays prior to her operation indicated the cancer had not spread to her lungs (which often happens, I'm told, if not caught soon enough), so Dr. Byrd performed the amputation. She called me in the afternoon to say the operation went very well. She called back later to tell me that Azul was already standing on her one front leg and eating like a horse. Good signs. I picked Azul up this afternoon and brought her home. When I opened her pet carrier, she came out like a shot and hobbled into my bedroom before collapsing on the floor. She can definitely move on those three remaining legs!
After a brief period of adjustment (which included several of the other cats skulking up to her for a good sniff-over), I removed her Elizabethan collar. She was able to hop over to the food bowl and attack some kibble. Awhile later, when I fed everyone their evening meal of canned food, she was right there, chowing down, with the rest of the gaggle. A little while after that, I figured she might need to go potty and picked her up and took her into the cat bathroom where the litter boxes are. She quickly hopped into a litter box but struggled a bit tending to her business. Well, nothing is easy at first, but I believe she will adapt soon. I expect Azul to be hopping around in a few days as if nothing unusual happened. We'll see.
