Kitten surgery costs

This fundraiser is for Alexander’s medical costs. It’s an astonishing number, but he’s an astonishing little kitten!
 
A few weeks ago, Jason was on his way up to visit his dad in the hospital in Iowa City when he noticed a car pulling over on the highway in front of him. Looking more closely, he saw a fluffy white kitten sitting in the middle of the road, his tail (just the tail sheath as it turns out) sitting several inches away. He stopped and as he got out of the car the other driver was already approaching the kitten. Unfortunately, the kitten hissed and scared the other driver, so instead of picking up the kitten to get him off the road, he kicked him to the far side of the road instead. Needless to say, this is where Jason got involved. Speculation is that this kick is the cause of the kitten’s broken leg. 

Jason took the kitten (estimated to be 7 or 8 weeks old) up to the emergency care clinic, where they immediately set to work on him. Both back legs were severely lacerated and the tail was a total loss. So after many stitches, a tail amputation, and his leg bone being pinned and set we were able to bring him home. 

At first, things were going well. The leg lacerations healed better than expected. One of the lacerations wrapped around the leg, cutting across his toes. They were afraid he might lose the toes, but they healed with full blood flow. The amputated tail also healed up nicely. Even with the pins in his leg, he was soon moving around his enclosure, happily playing with an ever increasing number of toys. 

The back leg also seemed to be healing better than expected. The main pin became loose at about the 3 week mark, and even though it was a week earlier than they had planned, they pulled the pin after seeing how nice the bone looked in the X-Rays. Well, the X-rays appeared to have lied. That evening when we got home, he wasn’t putting full weight on the leg and seemed to be in distress when he moved it. We were advised to wait a day to see if things got better, and they didn’t. So the day after we took him back up to the clinic where they discovered that the bone had apparently re-broken in the original spot. The vet there suggested that we go somewhere that had a board-certified surgeon – which came as a shock since we had assumed they were the specialists. 

So, we loaded up little Alexander, drove 115 miles to the next city that had a board certified surgeon. As it turns out the bone wasn’t so much re-broken as really bent. So the X-Ray didn’t lie - connection between the bones was made, it was just very soft and really bendy. They put a plate in his leg to keep the bone straight, and the surgeon was very pleased with how it all turned out. Depending on how large he grows, the plate might need to come out at a future time, or he might just need to be careful at airport security for the rest of his life – LOL! 

So things are looking well for little Alexander to have a long, high quality life. But vet surgery bills are shockingly high, and to have two leg surgeries has made Alexander a very expensive kitten indeed. We did set the amount a little higher than current costs to cover for his recheck in a week or so, but if we overestimated how much it’ll be, any extra we collect will be split between our two local no-kill animal shelters – Noah’s Ark and Heavenly Pet Sanctuary. 

Thanks for taking the time to read through all this! Donations of any amount are gratefully accepted, and no worries if you can’t donate at this time. If you would consider sharing Alexander’s story that would be just as helpful. Alexander also has his own Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/AlexanderTheKitten/ where we will also be posting pictures and updates if you need more cross-eyed kitten goodness.