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I apologize for formatting errors ahead of time as I am typing in my phone. This picture is prior to surgery last year. We rescued a kitten who ended up having a cleft palate that was identified when she was under anesthetic for a spay at about 6 months old. We had to send her up 200 miles north to get it fixed by a specialist at $900 which is a big percentage of our bank account at any time.
Decisions like that are really hard to make, but we never withhold care or euthanize for medical reasons if it is fixable. Besides, we focus on cats with special needs, but we try to budget for what we decide to take in. Unexpected issues are the worse. She had watery eyes, sneezing, coughing & lethargy.
Her name is Skye Blue. In addition to this surgery, she also had a broken pelvis in 3 spots. We did range of motion exercises for about six weeks. This was when she was 8 weeks, when we had no idea about her cleft palate. She had to be treated for ringworm, round worms, and hook worms too.
She had surgery back around December 1st and was put under anesthetic on December 15th again to check the area of repair. We found that it was mostly healed - see picture below where most of the suture material has since absorbed. So the vet said we could then switch back to dry food which we did over a series of days. She was sent home to her adopter since she was going cage crazy. Her activity went through the roof like it was before the surgery, and she is still active.
The problem is that her left eye has been continuously watering and she has started sneezing yet again. Doxycycline took care of it then it came back again 2 weeks later. Part of me wants to rationalize it as a herpes virus infection, the other part wonders if the cleft palate opened back up. The doctor not seem to think through our phone call that the eye would be related to a cleft palate.
The above picture was shortly after surgery. As and RVT at the cat rescue I have assess to most medications that I can use under the guidance of the vet. We are potentially going to hit it with azithromycin.
I am actually terrified to go 200 miles back to the specialist only to find that the hole opened back up and needs another surgery or more in-depth surgery. The below pictures show her squinty eye.
At that point we might have to make a decision to discontinue treatment as a small rescue we probably can’t take that kind of blow again for the same cat.
I do not know personally as this is my first cleft palate, if leaving it open would be a bad idea or if ending therapy at that point is more advised. The problem is regardless of how small or big you are, the astronomical price still has to be paid to the veterinarian to redo the surgery.
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