Cat CCL misdiagnosis?

Sadubehuh

Hi there, hope everything is well with everyone's pets!

Just want peoples' opinions on our recent experience with our cat.

So on Sunday 2nd Dec, we came home about 4am (birthday celebrations!) and our two cats were fine. I got up about 11am to feed them, and our female cat Willow wouldn't come near me. I went over to her to see what was going on and she ran away from me, and then I saw she couldn't put weight on her back leg.

We brought her straight to the vet. At this point, I will say that this is not her usual vet. We usually bring her to a cat only clinic, which is attached to the hospital we brought her to that day. We have always found this clinic to be fantastic, I can't speak highly enough of the vets there. However, it was out of hours, so we brought her to the attached hospital.

At the hospital, the vet said that they would have to sedate her to examine her properly, as she was in so much pain and wouldn't let anyone touch the leg. We agreed to this and xrays. We left Willow there and got called to collect her a couple of hours later. When we collected her, the vet told us that she had definitely torn her CCL, and that she may also have a fracture because in her xrays, a growth plate seemed to be widened. The vet said that she would need surgery, that we must keep her contained in a crate, and gave us pain relief for her. She said she would send the xrays on to a surgeon and we would hear back from the surgeon in a couple of days.

Monday night she passed blood in her urine. We called an emergency vet line, who said it was probably cystitis from the stress and to contact our vet in the morning, as long as she was otherwise ok.

We called our vet Tuesday and the surgeon still hadn't seen the xrays, told them about the blood and also that she hadn't passed poo but they said it was fine, and that the surgeon would call us Wednesday.

I ended up calling them Wednesday as Willow was miserable and I still hadn't heard anything. The nurse said that the surgeon had seen the xrays and had just not had a chance to call us, which was fine, I understand how busy they can be! She asked me how Willow was, I told her again about the blood, the poo, and how swollen her leg was (which we thought was normal with a ligament tear and possible fracture!). She tells us that she will mark Willow as urgent and will get someone to call us that evening or first thing in the morning.

We get a call that evening saying that there are no signs of ligament damage or fractures in Willow's xrays. We book an appointment for her usual vet the next day, as she is even more lame on her sore leg. The next morning, we see a big ulcer (bigger than a 10c coin) on her leg. Bear in mind she is a petite cat. We call her usual vet and they say to bring her straight in.

Turns out she had an abscess which ulcerated. Thankfully, she seems ok now. Our main concern is was this something the first vet should not have missed. We love our usual vet, the clinic has been fantastic. But, if the attached hospital is as bad as we think, I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable attending there. I know a CCL tear is rare in cats, I would love to know others opinions on this!

aonb

Passing no judgement/comment on misdiagnosis etc, but if I brought my pet to
any veterinary professional on a sunday, and still had not heard from them by a Wednesday evening, I would NOT be impressed with their service or level of care - or professionalism. I would have phoned them on Tuesday morning, to demand some kind of response, and they would know I was not impressed with the lack of interest. I also would not be going back them as all confidence I had in them would be gone :mad:

Hope your cat is doing ok now?

Sadubehuh

Yes she is. It was a bit tricky at first because the infection had been left for a few days, but she had a followup this morning and she is healing brilliantly! Luckily, we had her insured, so we can claim back the costs of the scans and sedation.

We do find the cat clinic and all the vets there fantastic, so I don't want to burn any bridges there by kicking up a stink about the attached hospital, if this is an easy thing to miss. She has her final appointment on Friday, so I think I may just ask her usual vet about the misdiagnosis and see what she has to say.

Bunnyslippers

I’d say it could happen to any vet, you’ve got a hot swollen non weight bearing injury which could be a foreign body, a break, a very bad bruise, a sprain etc so very hard to diagnose. Abscesses can pop up literally overnight and go from being a hot swollen area to a giant pus filled blister pretty quick and they don’t always feel like an abscess, injuries in animals are sometimes a process of elimination.
I’d be more worried by the fact it took so long for anyone to get back to you, that’s what I’d be hauling them over the coals for. On the plus side abscesses heal very fast once drained so at least you have that as a huge plus it wasn’t a break or a cruciate ligament - I had a cat with that years ago and it cost a bomb to get fixed!